The 1.5 Sonic Tomahawk (Patreon)

The Tomahawk is a single-handed, straight shaft hatchet which originated from the indigenous people of North America. The root of the English word comes from the Powhatan word tamahaac, but it also shares linguistic cognates with tomhikon and təmahikan. It was the Algonquians who are said to have first created the tomahawk, constructing it from sharpened stones affixed to wooden handles by strips of rawhide.

Eventually, contact with the European colonialists resulted in the introduction of the metal blade, which then gained an additional back section hammer/spike and even later became known as the pipe tomahawk. These weapons were initially made by the Europeans for the intention of trading with the Native Americans and a lot of them were mass produced in Europe – though the most prized ones were made in America by gunsmiths who had all the requisite skills developed from their manufacture of firearms. 

Due to the indigenous population not having mastery of metalworking at that time; these weapons were of course highly valued by them, especially because the Europeans had no desire to teach them the skill.

Later on, this style of tomahawk would sometimes have a literal pipe constructed into it; this was done by drilling out the shaft and having a hole in the hammer side of the head, it would in effect combine two of the commonly known symbols/tropes of Native American culture by blending the peace pipe with the tomahawk.

In current times tomahawks are a pretty widely spread and well used tool across many parts of America; their use and their part in the culture of the United States remains a troubled and controversial spot and it is fair to say that there is a long way to go before reconciliation could ever truly be complete. I'm not going to comment on the Braves Tomahawk Chop situation; because it is very complex and I'm also not descended from the aggrieved parties, but it is very clear that the Kingdom Death tomahawk is not exactly a kind or appropriate cultural homage.

Before we get into the weapon itself, I do want to just stress a serious set of points on the cultural front, while the Thunderbird is considered somewhat synonymous with the Phoenix by people of European descent, they are not exactly the same thing – so I somewhat get the desire to have a tomahawk as a weapon coming from the phoenix, but it's a bit of a wide miss of the mark. While that could be taken as being a somewhat good intended misstep (like most of the cultural honouring in KDM seems to be), there is a more direct and I hope unintended incident built into the weapon. The Savage keyword.

One of the biggest problems with the portrayal of the Native American peoples was the terminology of calling them 'savages' which was designed to dehumanise them and therefore make it fine to swindle, cheat, kill and generally take advantage of them in any way possible. You can find this baked into the very heart of American national identiy as the Native Americans are referred to as 'the merciless Indian Savages'  (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript) by the Declaration of Independence no less. I cannot speak directly on behalf of any of the varied Native American peoples; but speaking as someone who has had their own cultural history appropriated by the English and the French – I would not be happy with this if I was in their position. 

It is worth pointing strongly that I suspect this occurrence is just a poor taste error caused by the fact that savage is used in the terminology of 'fierce, ferocious or cruel' rather than the terminology that is used to refer to other humans as being inferior, uncivilised or primitive.

To be clear I'm not saying that the Phoenix's designer looked at the Sonic Tomahawk and said 'As this is a Native American inspired weapon we should make sure it has savage because that's what they were.'  Instead I am saying maybe someone at the design team should have thought about that one a little and perhaps consulted with a cultural expert or two before going ahead. I certainly think that if someone of Native American descent was upset or offended by this weapon design; they would be well in their rights on that matter. 

If you are interested in the history of the Tomahawk, its status or history, or other things which I have only been able to briefly touch on here I recommend that you do further research on your own as it is a fascinating, eye-opening journey into a culture which is rarely given the spotlight it deserves. 

Just make sure that whatever places you go to read, their information is verified with sources and you try to be wide-encompassing with your reading. It is a difficult subject and not one that I could even begin to scratch the surface of. However, for myself, it was impossible to do the research into the history of the Tomahawk without coming across these areas where you have to question the sensitivity or understanding of KDM's designers; because they are well known for making offensive and low-brow jokes without much thought to the consequences their actions may have on others. 

With all of that written, let us now drill into the weapon! 

The Sonic Tomahawk has moved from being something that would be mostly ignored into becoming one of the premier axes in the core game; and the changes were made in a way that largely left the weapon's original design uses intact. On that front the Sonic Tomahawk demonstrates what good balancing of a design can look like and in order to properly examine this; let us see the two designs side-by-side and analyse each change.

(Note: the new version of the axe still has the boxes for the affinity ability, I have just needed to work from a less than ideal image in order to create this axe for my play testing and the boxes got lost along the way.)

What we can see is the design has mostly been left intact and only two changes have been made. The first of these is a retheming of the weapon's affinity ability that unlocks Savage & Paired. This is a simple and elegant change which brings the weapon closer to the design ethos of the colours in the game. Green is typically linked to defensive changes such as gaining evasion (Monster Grease), or unlocking of Perfect hit abilities when paired with red (Greater Gaxe). It isn't linked with either keyword here. The change also takes some pressure off builds trying to use these weapons and also makes it easier for the weapons to work in a paired fashion. Each axe is now providing half of the two red affinities needed for the unlock; previously one axe provided half of the unlock and the other red half affinity was of no use to the axes. In addition the reduction from four affinities to three is a significant one. When you only have a maximum of 12 spots where you can connect affinities, having to link up 4 of those is quite a pressure.

The other change however is the most impactful one; and it demonstrates the almost singular voice that players have been speaking with to APG. Strength matters. No weapon coming from a Node 3 monster should ever have 2 strength (outside of weapons with alternative ways of dealing damage); and 2 strength, combined with 3 speed, creates a disaster waiting to happen. You wouldn't even be happy attacking a Level 1 Phoenix with a 2 strength weapon (unless you're a sculpted Himbo survivor with lots of strength buffs) let alone a level 2 one – and the level 1 monsters are designed to act as stepping stones to reach the level 2 versions by providing the gear you need. If they can't do that then they end up with broken developmental chains which force players to endlessly farm the easiest version of the monster because they need a lot of external buffs to get their weapon strength up enough to reach the next toughness plateau.

Considering that the average wounding roll for the 1.5 Sonic Tomahawk is 7.5 (+ Survivor stats); you can see why the weapon would struggle to harm the L1 Phoenix's 10 toughness, let alone the L2 Phoenix's 12 Toughness (Which it can only reach with an additional 10 coming from the dice/survivor/other equipment). It would just sit far behind the gear which players have already set up in order to get the appropriate resources for the axe; why craft something worse than what you already have?

With the change to 6 strength however; we're seeing a baseline average roll of 11.5 across the showdown. That is a much more acceptable baseline; especially when you consider that the Tomahawk's red affinity is on the left hand side, which is the best side for red affinity weapons because of this old staple.

This necklace even combos with the paired Tomahawks by being activated through their desire for two red affinities. Which means it's not hard to get to a (6/5+/8/Paired/Savage) weapon if that is what your dreams desire.

Ultimately, fancy abilities, pretty art and neat keywords all fall away if the baseline stats are not high enough. Raw power and efficiency often wins out when trying to build loadouts for survivors and finally the Sonic Tomahawk has landed – all you need is 1x small feathers, 1x iron and 1x hollow wing bone.

What a difference just a couple of tweaks can make to a weapon!

There is another interesting aspect to this new Sonic Tomahawk design, it is one of the few weapons that has an overt, designer forced, build because it has natural synergy with the Phoenix Armor affinities (not something you'll read often!) Which allows us to pivot nicely into an example build; one that aims to demonstrate a powerful offensive survivor that aims to satisfy players who want to roll lots of dice when attacking. They've been unfortunate in that until recently high speed weapons have meant low strength (which is a death sentence), but they may now have a champion in the Sonic Tomahawk.

 The Bird Bread exists as an affinity completion for the Plackart and could be replaced with anything else that has a matching Green Right affinity; likewise the Monster Tooth Necklace is an optional slot. Items like the Sunspot Lantern or Scrap Lantern are ideal replacements for late game People of the Lantern, but you have a lot of options for those two slots – especially if you go outside of the core game. Anything that pumps survival or improves durability is very welcome. 

What, we get here is a core game, mostly phoenix gear built survivor who can hit the monster with (6/5+/8/Savage/Paired) attacks (before survivor stats) and even Charge 7 spaces (10 with the Harvestman Fighting Art) in order to increase their baseline strength by up to 7 (or 10). This is especially punishing for monsters who like to move around a lot. There's not many survivors who can get to a baseline 18 strength for an attack; and there's a lot of fun involved in positioning the survivor correctly in order to maximise these gains. It's also a very entertaining image, this survivor zooming along at high speed and smashing into the monster over and over. (Remember you can always dash before charging in order to position correctly, and that's a good use of survival in my opinion).

You can also do some crazy things with the Sonic Tomahawk if you use expansion armor sets. Dragon Armor and Cycloid Scale Armor both work wonders alongside this weapon, though there are probably better choices to be paired with CSA and Dragon Armor usually works best when paired with a reach weapon. We can always explore this in the future, and for the moment we'll give Phoenix armor a brief moment in the sun - because when you start talking about the Sunstalker, you have to acknowledge the power of the Denticle Axe...

Before we leave; there is one last thing which does have to be briefly looked at; because the Sonic Tomahawk is such a powerful weapon; anything which shares resources with it will suffer a similar fate to the one that the 1.5 Sonic Tomahawk also suffered - being rightfully ignored. 

At some point in the future we'll explore the Hollow Sword with the goal of seeing how well it can be optimised and used; but for now it is clear that the more straightforward and effective route is to employ the use of the Sonic Tomahawk (or two) – the upsides of this weapon, and the sheer mayhem/fun it can offer dice chuckers – are just too sweet to pass up on.