Timeline Events: People of the Stars (Patreon)

This time we're off with Kingdom Death's best boi, the wonderful, but ever so sad and angry Tyrant - we'll be taking a look at the Timeline for Stars and exploring how best to deal with each event and the overall arc of the campaign. Spoilers incoming.

I'm on record publicly stating many times that Stars is the single best campaign and story we have in the world of Kingdom Death at the moment. It's a master crafted piece that uses Christian themes of sacrifice for others, reincarnation and spins them into a treatise on 'Might makes right'. 

It also has the single best written ending, I cannot state enough how well done the ending is, it's so perfectly crafted that it still manages to fool some people who haven't paid sufficient attention to all of the clues and signalling into thinking that it's another nihilistic 'everyone dies' end the way that Lantern and Sun are.

We'll talk about the signalling at the end, but if you check the 'People of the Stars' tag at the bottom of this post you'll find more detailed looks at why it's so well done along with a lot of detail on the aesthetics of the campaign (especially why the Tyrant looks the way he does).

Dragon Traits

Before we begin, we have to discuss the main mechanic in Stars, Dragon Traits aka Star Bingo. These are keywords that are gained during the campaign from a bunch of different sources, you can identify them by their bolded red text. 

Each of them allows you to cross off the relevant entry on the bingo board. Here's the version from SID's settlement sheets (still the best ones I've found, but I really need to make my own).

Once an entry is crossed, it's crossed off forever and when you hit 4 in a row or a column you get to unlock that constellation (don't bother unlocking Goblin).  This is the main mechanic of the campaign, it's core to everything that happens and the game does everything short of tell you outright 'GET AS MANY OF THESE CONSTELLATIONS AS POSSIBLE'. 

They are in fact so important that the first 4 constellation hunters you get should all be kept at home on the bench until you have more constellations to rotate. Seriously, you need to keep 4 for the end game portion (as we'll see). So bare in mind, everything we are doing here is all about these traits, unlike Saviors in Lantern, Constellations in Stars are vital and to be protected rather than used and tossed out as murder bait.

When you do trigger a constellation you will typically pick 'Consume Lies' because a broken jaw is nowhere near as bad as Vestiphobia (because that disorder archives body armor), but there may be situations where the survivor is wearing disposable gear (rawhide) and you can quickly cure the disorder. So it is not a hard rule.

First Story/First Day/Foundlings

These are the same as in Lantern, the main change here is in the setting up of the settlement and the loss of the King's Man event Armored Strangers. Because of thisl there is no reason at all to not push population hard in Stars, excess Plebs can be sent to the Throne to either gain a Scar or die and become an innovation and they also provide buffer/fodder for your Hunters, who will become the only survivors that matter during this campaign and the only ones who can win it for you.

The other change is to get Foundlings instead of Returning Survivors. This changes your innovation deck with several replacements; Dragon Speech is functionally Language with a new coat of paint, likewise the Radiating Orb is the Lantern Oven with a cooler look. 

However Family and Clan of Death are removed from the potential cards to be gained and replaced with Bloodline, Empire and also Arena is added in. These changes to how the deck and campaign works changes one important fact about innovating, because Bloodline and Empire are central to winning the campaign, Hovel moves from being the worst innovation choice up to being the most important, tactically Drums is still stronger in the early game and Symposium is likewise key, but Hovel becomes so important once you have a few decent Hunters to breed Dragon Traits from so (thankfully) it moves up the list a lot despite being filled with a lot of chaff innovations.

Intimacy

I didn't mention Intimacy in the Lantern article (an oversight, my apologies), I should have because it varies from one campaign to the next. But the main thing to take away here is in Lantern Survival of the Fittest is always the right choice, but in People of the Stars you can benefit from Protect the Young as much as SotF because the table favours high rolls so much. I would recommend PtY for less experienced players who might struggle with passing on valuable Dragon Traits and who want that buffer. 

Additionally, Protect the Young gives out the Nobel surname on a 4 or a 5 so it helps keep traction, SotF hands out an additional trait on a 6 or 7 which makes it better for Bloodline breeding.  However the big prize is the 10 (with a Hovel) on the table, which gives you access to the incredible Iridescent Hide ability and the 'you want at least one copy of this' Oracle's Eye ability. Here they are.

These two are the largest arguments for PtY out there, Iridescent Hide is an absolutely massive amount of additional durability while the information Oracle's Eye gives you is game changing, knowing that a Lion God has Earthquake or not in its deck allows you to play very differently.

Ultimately, there is NO right answer on the birth principle here, both have strong benefits and it highlights that the problem in Lantern is not Protect the Young's design, it's the Lantern Intimacy table that is at fault. To be specific, it's saviors that cause the imbalance, they're so bad that the reward for rolling a 10 with a Hovel is not worth it.

Also the Gorm is great in Stars because it often gives you an early hovel.

The Tyrant (Level 1) - LY 3

I've written about the Tyrant elsewhere but if you want it, I'll do a full guide and visual guide - I just need to get enough interest in the comments. So to bullet point it, the L1 fight is about letting the Obsidian Statues pile up as much as possible so you can get the bonuses for hitting with 5+ on the board, and then you want to critical as much as you can to get the bonuses there and score the deathblow. The gear that helps you is as follows:

• Bone Club / King's Spear (for smashing statues when you need to)
• Catgut Bow & Claw Head Arrow
• Lion Beast Katar /  Rib Blade / Riot Mace
• Whisker Harp (removing his moods)
• Rawhide Headband
• Cat's Eye Circlet / Wisdom Potion
• Evasion
• Lucky Charm

Basically, mood control, AI control, Criticals, defense, range, statue smashing gear (you only need 5 statues, you can and should break the rest). As long as you're careful and somewhat prepared, this fight is easier than The L1 Bitcher.

Midnight's Children - LY 5

Weakness is anathema to strength.

Just like in Lantern, this is your free innovation (though you should also be spamming the Throne location ability with Plebs when you can) and it's your way of generating heat.

As for the two tables, well this is a similar thing to Armored Strangers, except that there is no real bad side to things (as long as you've picked Graves, always pick Graves). If you've been struggling to get enough Dragon Traits then he's going to cull the worst of your survivors (the Plebians, not the Potentials/Hunters who should have traits) and give you some bonuses to help you progress in his goals.

If you've been doing well he might give you the Regal Edge or Dragon Vestments, otherwise he's going to buff your Potentials or one lucky Pleb. He's a good chap, just pay attention to what he's doing here, survivors without dragon traits either get traits or die...

Unveil the Sky - LY 10

Say hello to the big boys of Kingdom Death and the void above the clouds! In this event The Tyrant reveals to chosen survivors some of the truths of the setting, we do not get to comprehend all of them ourselves, we just get to see the affects on the survivors.  

In the run up to this event you should have multiple survivors with Dragon Traits, if you don't then your campaign is starting to spiral out of control and you need to get a handle on it because you've only got the L2 and L3 Tyrants plus Awake triggers left to get you there... Clock's a ticking.

As for who to pick for this event, you can get Destined, Noble, Reincarnated and Frozen Star from this event at the following ratios 2/3/3/1 (10% chance of death), so you should be putting survivors aiming for Rust into the roll most of all, but also it helps with Sculpt, Absolute and The Gambler. Try to make sure that you're on chart for one (or more) of those with each survivor you roll with, and be prepared to either reroll (SotF) or be fine with losing that survivor. Figure out if you think you're more likely to get what you need elsewhere (Tyrant Showdown, Awake) if you are not OK with rolling a 1 on a particular survivor.

After this there are a few tests from The Tyrant, but the timeline falls silent from non-nemesis events as you are now expected to build strength and follow the Tyrant's goals. That is until LY20...

The Tomb - LY 20

Big oof. If you didn't realise by now that The Tyrant was the Dragon King, now you do. A fun thing you can do with people who are not that familiar with the setting is play Stars and hide the model from them until it's time to read this event and bring him out. Interesting side note here, the Tyrant's Dragon form is listed as being black muscle and nebulous, glowing membranes. One of the few times we get a definitive colour answer on a monster.

S H O W M A N S H I P

This event will give you access to either Ultimate Weapon or Final Fighting Art for the rest of the campaign, The Tyrant isn't a selfish jellyfish like The Watcher, he doesn't confiscate your final principle just because he's turned into a big Wagon. You can be in a lot of control over which one you get by population management, basically you can breed up more Plebs just before this event kicks in and get Ultimate Weapon, otherwise you'll get Final Fighting Art. 

Personally I prefer FFA's extra control over monster behavior above UItimate Weapon's tutoring for one specific resource, but in some campaigns, such as Green Armor or Spidicules Rings, Ultimate Weapon can be very valuable.

This then feeds into four parts, which will each get their own mini entry:

The Tomb: Part 1 - LY 21

Gain the Hazmat Shield (third best shield in the game now that the Oxidized Beacon Shield is a thing), gain +1 Luck Token when departing and get punished for not having at least 4 Constellation survivors (I did warn you about benching them to keep at least 4 in reserve).

The Tomb: Part 2 - LY 22

You lose all basic resources collected on the hunt when you return, however one would hope that you don't need them at this point, also with +1 Luck you should have gathered quite a few extra monster resources, so this should not have hurt too much.

What does hurt is you lose 4 endeavors if you failed to keep 4+ Constellation survivors and also you are going to have to rotate out the 4 Hunters who were just out there, I hope you kept a decent bench set, but even if you didn't, they get +1 Luck Tokens. I would be using Non-Constellation Hunters, Plebs or Potentials here at this point unless I had a deep bench of Constellation Hunters.

The Tomb: Part 3 - LY 23

Again you lose all basic resources brought back in. Also, If you've still failed to get to 4 Constellations at this point, well goodbye everyone except for the Constellation hunters. Just in time for the L3 Nemesis Monster. 

At the moment there is no real good pick for L3 Nemesis Monster, either you're going with the L3 Butcher, in which case those +2 Luck Tokens are (almost) useless, or you're going to pick the Hand. Typically The Hand is Chosen. But optionally, if you have spare Plebs you could choose to tangle with the King's Man. I don't think this is a good plan, but there are some situations where it might apply - especially if the King's Man is updated.

So unless you have The Slenderman as a Nemesis in this campaign (+2 Luck Tokens is good there), you're going to probably be picking The Hand for the extra stat boots on Applause, this might get a Constellation activated... maybe.

The Tomb: Part 4 - LY24

Another +2 Luck Tokens for the departing survivors (I dislike the random way these events are ordered, that should be the last section) and a 70% chance that your Constellation survivors butcher everyone else - I had one particularly amusing game where my 15 Constellation survivors butchered around twenty thousand survivors (I was messing about with the Great City exploit to see how far I could push it in Stars and I forgot that the Constellations do this most of the time).  The 8 - 10 result is kind of meaningless, but it might manage to push a couple of survivors into Constellations, just be aware that if they don't make it this final year, they're done, kaput, toast.

The Final Nemesis: Death of the Dragon King - LY25

And here we see what the campaign has been telling you all along, if you do not have a constellation you are just fodder along the way - if they hadn't died in the previous years, they are 100% dead now. Get outta here plebs.

To be honest, if you've made it here and you have at least 3-4 Constellation Hunters, you are probably going to win. Currently both the Death of the Dragon King and The Sun are ridiculously weak monsters that do not hold up to the level of power the survivors will feature. An average run has the Dragon King dying in 4-5 turns and we've killed him in 2. His Toughness is just too low for the power level of a successful campaign and I'm of the opinion it should be in the mid 20s.

And that's Stars, despite the flaw of the final nemesis being a bit too easy I think that this campaign holds up with the strongest narrative, the most coherent Antagonist in The Tyrant/Dragon King and it adds more to the history of the Kingdom Death world than Lantern and Sun combined. It's a fascinating piece and it's why I've gushed about it so many times in the past, I really hope that the Abyssal Woods, Stan, Silver City and Inverted Mountain Campaigns take note from this masterpiece and adapt a similar style - I am bored with 'they triumphed, now they all die' endings, they're indistinguishable from 'they failed and they all die' ones.