Manhunting: Part 1 - The Reverberating Lantern and the Hunter's Heart (Patreon)

“Why put off kicking somebody's *ss next week when I can do it right now.” -- The Undertaker

As one of two visitors from the Holy Lands (the other being the Second Lion Knight); the Manhunter represents one of the few windows that players get into the dystopian and frankly evil empire that exists under the rule of the Golden Entity. Part slaver, part bounty hunter, and part witch hunter with a huge amount of WWE's legendary wrestler The Undertaker; this monster is one of the most interesting and repulsive types of individual in the setting.

They travel across the lands seeking survivors who will be taken back to the Holy Lands and used as 'flesh for the machine' (to put it in mild terms). So yeah, being taken by a Manhunter is not something you'd wish on even the worst survivor and it's one of the few areas where the game tip toes into the genres that people with only a surface understanding of the setting accuse it of being in all the time. 

The Manhunter is without doubt a "vat" grown individual, custom designed for the very job which it undertakes, they live in service of their lords and traverse great distances to find more meat for the pile. They deserve every single nasty fate that the survivors inflict on them and more besides.

Manhunters are one of the more well equipped adversaries that the survivors will face (outside of the literal godlike Entity that is the Hand), in addition to their genetically forged bodies they also have a wide range of tools to help them survive and hunt. They also demonstrate use of languages (they can talk in any language the survivors know) and are known to prepare traps ahead of fights.

They are a very interesting villain, one that was created by Zachary Barash over a single week spent listening to the Undertaker's theme on repeat (according to him) and despite this relatively short initial development period they remain one of the higher rated expansions in the game. For myself they have slipped a bit in the rankings, they were once back in the day in my top 5 (as was the Flower Knight); but they slipped a bit (unlike the Flower Knight, which is now in the bottom three).

Over the next few weeks we're going to dig around in what makes the Manhunter such a compelling and well designed expansion. Along with the few flaws that hold it back from being the very best, like no-one ever was. We'll start with the gear in the order it is received.

The Reverberating Lantern

“Allow the purity of evil to guide you.” -- The Undertaker

In addition to being a reference to Bray Wyatt's lantern entrances (Bray "The Fiend" Wyatt was considered something of a spiritual successor to the Undertaker). The Reverberating Lantern is a phenomenal piece of 'show don't tell' - explaining not only why the Manhunter appears out of nowhere the way that it does, but also explaining how they can travel such vast distances in the darkness without being harmed. 

Butchers traverse the darkness with a mixture of ferocity and a huge pile of lanterns, King's Men do it with their lantern glaives, disposable, cursed nature and the Hand does it by virtue of a tiny lantern plus being one of the most dangerous beings in the plane. The Manhunters get their safety and comfort from the storm lantern styled Reverberating Lantern - a device that can replenish reserves of survival or insanity over long journeys and also cloak its owner from sight through soundwaves. 

This item is also one of the pinnacle examples of how gear should be designed. Survivors have very limited slots for their gear, 9 slots - of which 6 are taken by a weapon plus armor, which only leaves 3 slots for anything else they might want to bring. What this does is result in very tight competition for the 12 slots across the entire four survivors - only the best items make the cut; situational ones will struggle. 

The Reverberating Lantern demonstrates how a situational item can be crafted to become an almost essential item. By being so well specialised and strong that it carves out its own niche and by having synergies way beyond its direct use; through keywords, additional story events and affinities. This item is peak design and it's one which we should break down into its respective elements.

Keywords

While at the moment the tool keyword has no direct mechanical impact, we will see next time that some tools can be changed and affected. The lantern keyword is a great example of how future proofing design can result in interesting new niches for gear. In 1.31 Lanterns were just lanterns, that's it - but in 1.5 People of the Lantern changed this, with the post Watcher campaign portion becoming a space where lanterns were essential, everyone needs a lantern and having ones with interesting, powerful and useful abilities like the Reverberating Lantern means that you are not just losing your 9th slot to a bunch of affinities (the survivor lantern). 

There may be more exploration of lanterns or tools in the design space - but even now, the Reverberating Lantern is one of the best lanterns to get in People of the Lantern (alongside the Pulse Lantern and the Sunspot Lantern).

Affinities

Affinities are the next part of the picture, affinities can take a hunt phase or single use item and keep it relevant throughout the showdown by allowing it to activate other affinity abilities. This is one of the most delightful and interesting portions of the gear game in Monster, and without it the game would be lessened by quite a large amount.

Here we have two well placed affinities which are strong but not in completely optimal positions. The Blue is in a prime place, but the Green is not. Still, there are plenty of builds that will make use of this item, often in the left most column of the gear grid and that is another element of what makes this item so great.

Story Ability

We have saved the best for last here. The ability that Reverberating Lantern has is unique, powerful and has multiple layers. Sonorous Rest is a once per hunt ability that allows survivors to replenish/gain either survival or insanity based on their green or blue affinities (which links back into the lantern's own affinities nicely). 

This alone would already push the lantern into a 'must have' territory, but we also get synergies with the Manhunter innovation 'War Room' and 'Storytelling'. War room allows survivors to repair lost armor points or remove tokens gained during the hunt phase and Storytelling lets them potentially gain survival, courage/understanding or fighting arts with no downside.

This means that this event is nothing but a positive and is wonderful for helping survivors recover from the trials of the hunt phase and be better prepared for the showdown coming. It is something you seek to activate just before encountering the monster. It's also pretty sweet how the lantern grows in strength when your settlement also grows, that's a nice way of having the item scale into the late game and always remain useful.

Honestly it's one of my favourite designs and an example of a master designer (Barash) at work.

The Hunter's Heart

"You can not kill that which is already dead.” -- The Undertaker

Another neat reference to the Undertaker's supernatural abilities, the Hunter's Heart gives Manhunters a way to potentially come back from death while also giving us another look into the technological superiority of the Holy Lands. This item which is described as being 'old and sad', with a 'cold face' and 'corded veins that secrete a sparkling, crimson blood' provides a way for survivors to potentially avoid the full consequences of death. Carrying this ancient human heart around allows it to imprint on the most recent survivor and regrow them.

It is also a very interesting item because of its three uses, it can be carried as an unreliable anti-death device, or it can be baked into part of the Green Armor set. Or it can be "consumed" to trigger the very interesting Bleeding Heart story event - and that is the one which I think most non-Green Armor campaigns should undertake, especially if you have innovated Cooking.

I'll be writing about the Manhunter innovations on Friday, so we can look at the Crimson Candy innovation then, the story event still has some wonderful world building and also a rare inclusion. You can choose one of three different outcomes to improve the survivor who triggers this event. I know... CHOICE!?! Choice in a Kingdom Death: Monster story event? What dimension is this? Who is the President? Where is Peter Porker?

It's a really neat set of options because there is no right answer at all, you're either choosing to get:

• +1 accuracy, +1 understanding, full heals of all permanent injuries for two survivors
• +3 Strength, Transcended Masochist Fighting art (which can help unlock the Eternal Will Secret Fighting Art)
• +1 Luck and +2 survival limit for the settlement

Like, wow. Which do you choose? This is a delightful smorgasbord of options and depending on your settlement you may vary in what you get. The full heals are really tempting if injuries have crippled key weapon trainers from hunts, the promise of getting the staggeringly wonderful Eternal Will SFA or you can go straight for that farming with the +1 Luck and the permanent settlement upgrade.

On top of all of that, you choose when to archive this item and go for the event, so you can make use of the heart for a while (if you want to) before switching up and getting the innovation + bonuses when you're ready for it.

It's another wonderful piece of design, because you're losing stuff to gain other things and you have to make decisions that close off other routes/options along the way. About the only thing I dislike about this is its involvement in crafting Green Armor - there is no decision when you are trying to make the Green Armor and it is a shame that this closes down all the tight decisions you have. (It seems clear that Green Armor was not designed by the same person who made the Manhunter expansion, they're on completely different levels of competence, but maybe Campaigns of Death will refine this interaction more and make it interesting).

So, Friday will be the Manhunter Innovations (plus a couple of others) and then next Monday we'll look at the other three gear cards you can get from the Manhunter before diving into the showdown with some details all in preparation for a visual guide on it!