Living in a Post Watcher World: Oxidation and beyond (Patreon)

So, in case you're not already clear, this article is going to be very spoiler heavy experience for People of the Lantern. But I have had a request from a few different patrons now asking about what to do once the initial Big Bad of People of the Lantern is down and I think it is an interesting part of the game to explore, especially because The Satan Expansion is going to build on the consequences of this with its promise of crafting materials based on the final, final boss of People of the Lantern. 

I'm not going to be able to be comprehensive here; there is an awful lot of noise when you get to the end portion of a campaign, KDM has so many branching paths on decisions that even two campaigns that drew exactly the same cards for 20 years could look very, very different. You may and will have ideas, options and opinions extra to what I write here. Feel free to put them in the comments, the late game is the part of the game that's most open to personal style and variation.

So heavy spoilers below, like really heavy. You have been warned. Here's Kingdom Death's best boy to protect you from the text that follows.

Overview

In People of the Lantern, the player's settlement is in essence a food investment on the part of the Watcher. These creatures seal themselves up in hibernation when they are in need of feeding, which attracts the survivors because of the 'safe' area they create (the other monsters are completely unwilling to go near it, including the campaign's ultimate nemesis, the Gold Smoke Knight). While the Watcher hibernates, it influences the survivors with knowledge, encouraging them to grow in number, technology and experiences so when it wakes it can feed.  Now I have speculated on who the entity behind the Watchers actually is elsewhere and it was a lot of fun to bring up the Ethereal Dreamer as a possible source (I still think it's quite likely it is), but without more information we cannot be sure. But it is certain that the Dreamer is involved in some fashion because Saviors come from Dreams and Watchers.  It will be interesting to see what happens to the lore when we get The Kings (Quarry) and The God Hand (Final Nemesis) in the Gambler's chest. You can be sure I'll revisit things and see if my hypothesis holds up. Until then it's just a theory, a Kingdom Death theory.

With the Watcher being the 2/3rds of the way through the game 'final' boss, People of the Lantern is split into two different experiences. Before the Watcher is present survivors have a 9 slot gear grid and the ability to innovate through normal methods. After the Watcher is slain, one of those slots must always be given up for a Lantern, the Lantern Horde has gone out and the Watcher's corpse can be used to Oxidize certain gear and increase its power substantially.

We know that this technology represents the start of a new age for the survivors which the Gold Smoke Knight is deathly afraid of. Adam directly confirmed that this is the reason the GSK turns up, it's unable to face the Watcher while it's alive (for some reason that we can't tease out through the mechanics - the GSK is clearly much stronger than Watchers mechancially, but mechanics does not always directly translate into lore).

While it would have been very interesting to see where things develop in a settlement post-Watcher this world proved too difficult for Adam to envision under the Monster framework, so we will have to see if it turns up in the future or not. There's a huge amount of things that could be expanded on and developed in the Kingdom Death world and Adam's tendency to feature bloat everything means we may not get to see it all. Shame.

Popping the Watcher

So the first thing you have to decide (and I use decide in a loose term here because you may have the decision made for you) is when to face the Watcher. The Watched story event allows you to choose to face the Watcher in Lantern Years:  20, 21, 22 or 24. You may not do it in LY23 because the Butcher turns up in that year.

This gives you an incredible amount of control over when you make the switch from the Pre-Watcher to the Post-Watcher state. I'm going to call the Pre-Watcher the Dreaming Phase and the Post-Watcher the Awake Phase; in part to fit in with the aesthetic of the campaign and in part to represent the Settlement 'waking up' to the monster they've built their society around.

In order to decide exactly when you should face the Watcher and move on to being Awake, it's important to understand that there are a bunch of different styles of play and the one that you've adopted for your settlement is going to make the largest impact.

Benefits of Dreaming

Every year that you delay killing the Watcher and waking your settlement means another year where you can innovate, share experience, use 9 grid builds and fight L1 or  L2 monsters. These are the three main things you will lose when you make the transition. 

In many cases the resource difference between an L1/L2 and L3 monster is irrelevant, while they are harder monsters for sure, the L3 versions have the potential to drop everything that the L1 and L2 ones do. But, in certain monsters, this is not the case as they have level specific Strange Resources. So you will have to consider what you need from monsters like the Sunstalker (L1, L2 and L3 all have different drops), the Dragon King (L2 has a different special drop) and the Lion God has level specific drops. Also certain monsters spike very highly in difficulty when you are forced to fight them at L3 only, the Dung Beetle Knight and Lion Gods are a prime example of this, but the Sunstalker, Phoenix and Dragon King are also no slouches. 

So if you need that Pituitary Gland, 1,000 year Sunspots, Sunstones or similar then you may want to delay a year or two, especially if it is a the difference between making a Skleaver or not. Likewise if you want to save up in advance for oxidation (see below) then this is where you might delay so you can hit L3 monsters with a full grid rather than 8 + lantern.

The other reason is if you are missing key innovations from the deck, now what makes for a 'key innovation' varies, but in general terms you really only need to have innovated between 10 and 16 times per settlement and you should also have been using all the alternative routes available as much as possible. So do not let Fear of Missing Out fuel your desire to innovate more, you can try out all those neat innovations you missed next time.

The last issue, the Lantern one can be quite a serious one to consider.  Survivors have to depart with a lantern gear in their grid and they must take the Final Lantern if possible. So any 9 slot gear grids are not possible unless one of their slots was a utility lantern already. 

The full list of lanterns you could be using are as follows:

• Final Lantern - Watcher
• Survivor's Lantern - 1x endeavor from the Extinguished Lantern Hoard 
• Sunspot Lantern - 2x Sunstones (2x L1 Sunstalker), 1x scrap, 1x salt (Sunstalker)
• Pulse Lantern - 1x Milky Eye, 1x Active Thyroid (Gorm)
• Lantern Halberd - Guidepost/King's Man
• Blue Lantern - Allison White Box/Hooded Knight
• Dying Lantern/Vibrant Lantern/Prismatic/Black Friday Lantern - Uncraftable Promos
• Jack O'Lantern - Craftable Promo for  1x Skull, 1x Scrap, 1x Organ (requires Memento Mori)

Aside: I actually think that the Exhausted Lantern Hoard is the best place to allow for crafting of the Dying/Vibrant/Prismatic and Black Friday lanterns. They're reasonably balanced for that portion of the game if they are 'once per campaign', and that is where I think they are best house ruled. Their bonuses are comparable to the affinities you get from the survivor's lanterns, but if you do this I really recommend making them all once per timeline because otherwise the Prismatic lantern can really get out of hand - free affinities on tap is a bit strong if abused.

The best lanterns are the first four, they all provide different benefits that approximately work out at the same power level. The Survivor's lantern may be basic without any affinities, but the red and green affinities are in premium orientations (left and right) so many builds can use them as activation filler. The Final Lantern has a host of very strong things linked to it (and is vital so it must be brought along if it's not been lost), while the Sunspot Lantern allows the Ink Sword to be used (Ink Sword is best Sword imo) and the Pulse Lantern gives you a potential clutch way of cancelling very scary AI cards during the flow step.

The Lantern Halberd is decent, but there are better spears for the end game, so it's not something I'd really make regular use of because it has no affinities and is irreplaceable and the Blue Lantern is cursed, so it is hard to bring into the end game and once the survivor who has it dies, it's gone (same with the Lantern Halberd).

The Jack O'Lantern is not a great option because it has no affinities and costs a lot more to build than the survivor's lantern. But we'll explore all of these lanterns in more detail when we get to their portions of the Support gear series.

Benefits of Being Woke

So that's the benefits of sitting on waking the Watcher for as long as possible, but what are the benefits of hitting it as soon as possible?

The main areas are relatively straightforward. You get access to Oxidization, Lantern Research you can raid the lantern hoard and you are not tempted with L1 or L2 monsters. It's a big, brave, difficult world, but one that can be rewarding. Now given that the technologies that the GSK fears - Oxidization and Lantern Research - are the main benefit of this, it is what we'll explore here - this is because the Exhausted Lantern Hoard ties directly into Oxidization and Lantern Research links closely to the Final Lantern.

Lantern Research (p.139)

This single page entry, which you are unlikely to have spent much time looking at, is the replacement system for Innovations. You will be losing the benefits of the Monster Controller tile (no more infinite insanity via Hiccup!) Instead you will be making use of that Orange Dice which you may have just rolled around without much thought or regard for it beyond it's position as a curio. 

One of the reasons why it's not really a big loss to move on away from Innovations is the existence of Lantern Research, your settlement shakes off the dream it's been locked in and begins to really become something free and real. Your developments of the past are now 'set' and those are the innovations your strategy should be designed around (you can still hit a few new innovations here and there through alternative gains).  Horripilation is an incredibly powerful suite of abilities and the Destiny innovation you gain can literally save lives with its Endure ability (Endure has some interesting applications when combined with the Death Mask and other +luck methods also).

Now you have the ability to undertake 'Pulse Discoveries' for 2x Bone, 2x Hide and 2x Organ. These Pulse Discoveries power up the death dice and give you a whole bunch of potent new abilities. Including extra attack rolls, movement, strength, ignoring knockdown and even having one last final hurrah just before you die. They are all powerful and in essence you are 'innovating' for "survival actions" each time.  There are 5 tiers of this and you start at Lantern Research Level 1. So in order to get to the maximum level you need to do this four times.  It is absolutely worth it to get to at least level 3 (Uninhibited Rage) or 4 (Legs Locked), level 5 would be a lot stronger if you could ignore death just at it happens and get one last push - as it stands it's only really relevant for survivors in edge situations. So you want to allocate 2-3 years and the appropriate amount of resources to maxing this out.

This puts some pressure on your post Watcher options already, if you have to get this section sorted in order to maximize benefit then you have less to spend on other things. Things which include the big portion of the post Watcher game. Oxidation.

Pseudo-Science with a Jellyfish Corpse

Oxidation is a term for any chemical reaction which involves the moving of electrons. The most famous version of this is:  4Fe + 3O2 → 2Fe2O3xH2O → Fe2O3.x H2O; known by its common name as the rusting of iron.  

Oxidation in the world of Kingdom Death turns weapons from an Early Iron state, where they are mostly considered to be useless, inaccurate lumps of metal into some of the deadliest weapons in the game.

This is not a cheap process, not by any means, in fact the cost per item is absolutely staggering. You need the resources for the item, extra resources which are added to it and a huge pile of resources to make the coating and protective gear. 

The Coating/Gear costs 3x Leather, 3x Bone, 3x Organ, 1x Black Lichen and 1x Cocoon Membrane and that is per gear card you are oxidizing. Then the stuff is given a 'High Voltage Bath' - as an interesting aside, this is a real thing, but it's not used for oxidizing. It was used as a form of medical treatment for a while the whole experience sounds interesting and a lot less painful than you'd imagine from the name - allegedly Tesla used similar methods himself. I'm not sure how it's supposed to be applied here in the world of Kingdom Death, apparently it makes your Early Iron gear rusty by aging it and because they're now old they're better (just like survivors I guess, there is a logic here).

You can, and should, start saving up for this stuff long in advance, a good settlement should typically be onto Level 2 Early Monsters before LY10 and on L3s from LY15+. A great settlement can have achieved that long before, so really it's just a matter of how well you can play and snowball early gains into later ones.  Right now the most efficient way to build up these resources is beating the heck out of Screaming Antelopes over and over. This is something even the internal design team has figured out, and it's looking to be addressed in Campaigns of Death. So I would recommend that you learn how to farm on other suitable monsters, so you're not a one trick pony when changes come.

In addition to stockpiling resources before the Watcher, you can also pile up the weapons and armor pre-Watcher and have them ready. Gear cards in your storage tend to be a lot safer than resources, so this is a decent way to behave.

These pieces of gear however are very powerful, I've written about most of them in the past, but I will briefly summarize each here in a list which encompasses my priority Oxidation order.

1. Oxidized Ring Whip (ORW)

Controlling the monster by pointing it at your tank is a very powerful ability. Provoke does this by giving the wielder the Priority Token every turn when they wound. The ORW provides this with a lot of strength to support it. Yes, Whips are an absolutely maligned category of weapon in KDM at the moment, but the ORW is strong enough to make you switch into Whips very late on in the campaign. 

You can either; Nightmare train, start training early on a Ring Whip (or Silk Whip) or just accept that you're only going to get the Specialization at best. The Specialization is the strongest part of Whip Proficency, so that's not a big deal.

The other thing you want to make sure you do is bring a Fecal Salve (or Cycloid Scale Boots), this is because sometimes you get too worn down to be able to keep tanking and because you can't 'switch off' Provoke, you need a way to remove the Priority Token each turn. Poop Makeup or Poop Boots does that just fine.

2. Oxidized Beacon Shield (OBS)

Beacon Shield is good, OBS is even better, Deflect not only 'lingers' around, but it also works against more than just attacks. There is a large reason why Deflect exists on the post Watcher gear. You want some of it, you certainly want at least one OBSs - unless you're already rocking 4x Fetorsaurus you rich, smug git...

3. Oxidized Lantern Glaive (OLG)

The Lantern Glaive is one of the contenders for the strongest late game weapon there is. It's held back by Early Iron causing it to have a 19% of missing each attack. That is to all intents and purposes "one in five attacks miss entirely". The OLG does away with that, increases the weapons strength and adds in a Perfect hit ability to boot. 

Making a top end weapon even more top end is just a no brainer if you are using Spears and/or Axes.

4. Additional Beacon Shields (1-2)

Did I mention that Beacon Shields are really good? Get more!

The lower Priority stuff is the following, I am of the opinion you can do them in any order you like. It depends what your settlement has specialized in and what armor sets they have. 

5. Oxidized Lantern Helm

This one depends on your armor sets, it can be used with Lantern, Phoenix or Dragon, but on the whole it is not really a major improvement over the normal options when you factor in the cost. That written, if you are flush with resources or you find a serious benefit from being selectively deaf because of the monsters you tend to face, this does have benefits, but I don't consider it to be something you need a lot of - it is rare that you have more than 1 or 2 metal based sets at the moment.

6. Oxidized Lantern Sword (OLS)

Deflect 1 is the best thing that is going for this weapon, there are superior late game swords available in many different expansions; for example, Ink Sword, Black Sword or Griswaldo. On the whole I consider this weapon a pass, even if I have a sword wielder. I might consider it if somehow the Lantern Sword was gained from the Gaping Maw Settlement Event.

7. Oxidized Lantern Daggers (OLD) and Oxidized Beast Katars (OBK)

I class these two together because the honest truth is they're not really worth it. You probably want to use them paired, and while paired is not a good ability, the accuracy on them and/or the design you have here requires it. The Lantern Daggers are genuinely bad, so stick with the Hooked Claw Knife (Gigalion) but the OBKs are decent enough if you make two and don't have Calcified Digging Claws.

It's a large investment, and if you go for these you're probably losing out on some of the top 4 in the list. However, it is worth noting that the 2x OBKs comes from gear you might have just sitting around in your storage doing nothing, Tempered Axe syndrome you know.

Typically I'm oxidizing at least 5 times in a campaign and this is a lot of things to get done, which is why I advocate popping the Watcher as early as you are comfortable doing, because that is my playstyle. But there are other styles and a lot depends on what expansions you have in and what bent your settlement is tilted towards. So before we finish, lets look at how I approach planning for the end.

• 1. Decide what advances and gear you will be aiming for late game, especially weapons. Work out roughly how much this will cost and if there is anything you can build in advance.
• 2. From LY15 see if you are going to be able to start saving towards these. If you are still missing key resources from L2 only monsters or you are lacking 
• 3. Assess your Innovation level, do you have all the 'essentials'? Is there anything that would make you just fall apart if you didn't get it? 
• 4. What toughness levels can you comfortably reach with the aid of a retinue? The Watcher reaches 25 toughness in LY 25, can you make that?
• 6. Are you going to need to rely on the Red Charm to wound the final nemesis (Toughness 27)? If so the defensive options become more important than the offensive ones.

It is in truth very difficult to write full, detailed guides for the late game portion of Kingdom Death, this is because of the sheer variance involved in the game. So I hope what I have written here helps and if you have any specific case situations you would like my opinion on, please do feel free to ask in the comments. I'm also interested in an unique things you've figured out with the oxidized gear, especially the paired OBKs and OLDs which have proven to be underwhelming for the cost so far.

Finally don't be afraid to fail, this portion of the game is a lot of fun, you get to face all the biggest, baddest quarries in the game at their peaks and you get to be very powerful yourselves. So pop the Watcher as early as you can, but be ready for the shift in tides!