Skulls for the Skull Throne: People of the Skull Campaign Variation (Patreon)

Hungry as hell no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, "I'll have a swig
And then there's some for you."

Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do?

-- Timothy by The Buoys (Later Dakota)

Easily the most played of all the variant campaigns out there, People of the Skull is a material based variant with heavy themes of honoring bones/skulls above all else. While it has heavy cannibalistic implications (hence my referencing the famous troll song Timothy), the campaign itself is more of one about honoring the dead rather than eating them. It's up to your individual choices on principles as to which way your society develops. There are plenty of cultures that have existed where wearing bones is not automatically an indicator of cannibalism. Skull cults have been around for a very long time, over 11,000 years at a minimum, so a campaign that follows this tradition is very much in theme with the tribal pre-bronze age feeling of Monster.

The special rules for People of the Skull are as follows:

• They may only place bone weapons and bone armor in their gear grid. 
• They ignore the frail rule.
• When naming a survivor, if you put the name bone or skull in it. They gain +1 to accuracy/strength/evasion/luck or speed (your choice).
• The skull ritual can be performed: Skull Ritual - The settle performs an exotic, violent dance with plenty of chanting . Cost: 1 skull resource, 1 endeavor. Nominate up to survivors to consume the skull. They gain a permanent + 1 to all their attributes.
• If anything is made using the Black Skull Phoenix resource, it may be placed into the gear grid despite being Iron.

This has all been expressed with Rabid Dog's Variant Settlement Location. Though I do personally think it would have been better represented with an innovation card to represent the endeavor. However, here is their location for reference.

I especially like the art used here, very evocative.

So, the main things to notice about this campaign are the severe limitations on what gear you can use as your offense/defense, and the incredible amount of stats that survivors in this campaign gain. They're given +1 for being named, still gain the normal stats from things like Survival of the Fittest, and they can Skull Ritual to become powerhouses (because the same survivor can Skull Ritual multiple times).

This campaign, despite the gear limitations, is another fun one that makes the game easier for newer players while also providing a neat twist for more experienced players. In some ways I think that KD:M would have benefited from being a legacy game where you initially play a shorter campaign using just the bone gear + 15 lantern years as People of the Skull before unlocking the full 30 year campaign. But APG have never cared about being accessible to players, and the idea of adding legacy elements to their game now has proven to be laughable (the strains are... not a good fit no matter how great some of the individual unlocks are).

Only Bones

So the major limitation to this game experience is the fact that weapons and armor must be bone (or crafted with an Iron Skull, more on that later). This means that anything with either the weapon or armor keyword MUST also have the bone keyword. We can boil that list down to the following weapon/armor gear cards (across all expansions):

• Acid-Tooth Dagger
• Beast Knuckle
• Blast Sword
• Bone Axe
• Bone Club
• Bone Dagger
• Bone Darts
• Bone Sword
• Bone Pickaxe
• Bone Sickle
• Calcified Juggernaut Blade
• Cat Fang Knife
• Digging Claw (Not the calcified version however)
• Dragon Chakram
• Dragonskull Helm
• Gaxe
• Green Boots
• Green Helm
• Griswaldo
• Hollow Sword (very good in this variant)
• Hooked Claw Knife
• Lance of Longinus
• Lion Skin Cloak
• Oxidized Beast Katar (not the normal LBK)
• Prism Mace (Sun)
• Regal Armor
• Rib Blade
• Scrap Shield
• Screaming Horns
• Skleaver
• Skullcap Hammer
• Skull Helm
• Sunring Bow (Sun)
• Talon Knife
• Whistling Mace
• Zanbato/Calcified Zanbato

Any items are fair game, as are any weapons/armor crafted with the Iron Skull as a part of the recipe. Bone Earrings are also worth a mention because of how strongly they work with all bone gear grids + People of the Skull stat boosts.

Wading through that list you can see the following weapon type breakdowns:

• Dagger x4
• Katar x4
• Sword x4
• Club x3
• Axe x2
• Thrown x2
• Tools x2
• Grand x4
• Spear x1
• Shield x1

Plus PotSun has a campaign specific club & bow that qualify (People of the Sun Skull is an interesting campaign because of all the limitations it has on gear).

On the armor front we have:

• Head x4
• Body x1
• Shield x1
• Boots x1 

And these lists include three green armor pieces.

A lot of these weapons listed above are far stronger than they appear, because of how many survivor stat boosts the Skulls can bring to the table. Even something as simple as a Bone Axe is an incredible powerhouse in the hands of a Skull.

Defensively the Skulls are a bit better off than it looks, because they have strong evasion that can be used with Monster Grease. Plus they can wear the White Lion Cloak & Lion Slayer Cloak (Gigalion) to provide a lot of damage soaking, and the Dung Beetle Knight plates will give more protection also.

Still, death is something that's ever present and looming in this campaign, which keeps stuff exciting.

Highlights

Outside of the amazing Skull Ritual (which you should always save skulls for, don't spend them on other things). The strongest highlights are how the campaign changes certain items and experiences, making them far more valuable than they used to be. Here are a few examples.

+2 Speed and +2 Strength in a campaign filled with uber-survivors like the Skulls is nothing to be sniffed at, and because they can leverage extreme strength or luck behind their attacks already. It just requires a little work, because you can't even have non-bone items.

The only complete armor set people of the Skull can wear. It even has strong synergy with the White Lion Cloak. This armor set is amazing anyway, but it's the dream for the Skulls.

This weapon is normally a hard pass, but in Skull it is a serious contender for a powerhouse weapon because of the limited options early on, the stat boosts of the Skulls, the removal of Frail and the limited number of axe options you have. You can easily be seen smashing this thing into Sunstalkers/Dragon Kings because of how high you can scale strength.

Just about everyone is going to be running around in this and a Skull Helm for most of the campaign. This item slows the damage your Skulls take significantly, while also giving a green affinity to attach to the Monster Grease. You'll probably be making four of these during the skull campaign.

If you don't care about weapon proficiency, why not smack them with sharp scythes/pickaxes?

There are more besides these few options, it is amazing how much this one rule changes things and it is a shame that there are not other pervasive keywords to allow for other variations. 

What makes for a good Skull campaign?

Honestly, the monsters which are (imo) best to hunt during Skull are:

• Gorm
• White Lion
• Screaming Antelope
• Phoenix
• Sunstalker
• Dung Beetle Knight
• Manhunter

So that's the mix I'd recommend, you can also consider the Lion Knight to help with making Green Armor, but if you want a full set you'll need a lot of Phoenix Black Skulls and that's one of the things you need to be aware of. So, if you want more variation in your weapons then you're going to need to get good at hunting the Phoenix. If that's something you want to learn, then this campaign variant is for you.