Dark Herald Update 1 (Patreon)

To start with before we can get into the interesting stuff that this update brought us, we are going to have to address the bad. First of all, this update was published in February for the vast majority of the world, and barely made it into January for the US. That's really not an acceptable place for an update like this to be delivered, it does not look the least bit professional. In fact, it smacks of procrastination and a school boy who puts off doing their homework until the last possible moment. Which means of course that said homework was rushed, wasn't checked well and the pupil has a lack of respect of the subject.

As for the content of this portion, buckle up. But, Before I delve into it I would like to direct you to Nick Wirtz (SpiralingCadaver) covered a lot of important feelings on the opening portion of the update and I would direct you to read those over here (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2803530/monthly-update/page/2). While Nick is more colourful in his language, the sentiment is very much a hard one to ignore at this point – Nick is a long term player of the game, is a very insightful individual and has been involved in content creation for KDM. When Nick is this upset about something, you need to take note.

If you want to just read the positives about this update I recommend that you skip until you see the second quoted text section (around 10 paragraphs down where there is a bolded sentence for your navigation) and start there. I wish that I could just be writing about the Dark Herald portion, but alas, this opener exists and I can't just turn a blind eye to it the way that I would like.

Here we go...

There are multiple, serious, red flags in the content of this opening section. We are immediately hit with the manipulative concept that we are a family. No, we're not, we're customers, content creators and consumers – you don't get to choose your family, you have to live with them being related to you forever even if you do not approve of them. You do get to choose what you consume (or not in this case, because we haven't had proper, full, new content to consume since 1.5 came out); you can vote with your wallet (I can't, I'm in the unfortunate position that somehow I fell into becoming a content creator for Kingdom Death and at least for the foreseeable future that is my path – Fortunately the game has a lot of interesting space to explore and I at least remain engaged with the game, if not the brand.)

What I am trying to say here is; calling us a family is really just not on. It's an attempt to control the narrative – which just about all of this opening section is all about. It's an attempt to take firm control over the audience in the same way that the design team is controlled. To the end of this; we have a reaffirmation that Adam is going to 'celebrate' the continued delays and blame world events for anything wherever possible. Behind the writing there is a perverse level of joy being projected here.

However, on top of that unashamed opener, we now also have an attempt at containing the public; the continued outcry and railing against this situation which people who have invested their money, time and heart into isn't a good look for APG. Add onto that certain white knights in the community bullying people who give measured and fair complaints, people who go 'pursue your dream Adam, it doesn't personally bother me, but I am going to tell people who want to get content that I am not affected' plus people who do go too far with their complaints and the entire thing is why one could easily call the KDM community a powder keg at this point.

So; now we're asked to self-censor; instead of writing about our issues on the Kickstarter publically, where new potential customers can see what's going on and make their own judgement based on that. Well we instead have a Room 101 email, a void where you can go shout and either a) it's ignored or b) some staff member has to read it, even if it's abusive. This move is the one which I consider to be abhorrent. It's a transparent attempt to try and clean away the complaints

“...especially if you think it will be negative, hurtful to me, my team or the backers...”

This is then followed up with the concept that either you are a Troll Bird or a Savior. So, if you love the game and line up with nothing but praise you're a savior (and you might even get some content in the game attributed to you if you're an exceptionally squeaky wheel); if you have concerns, complaints, criticisms or you're rude – you're a Troll. That's a very telling sentence; it says a lot about the person who wrote it, and it's not a great look for them while also being another major red flag.

I honestly think that this entire opening section should never have been put to text, let alone submitted – it's a Public Relations nightmare and it absolutely detracts from the rest of the update a great deal. The obvious level of manipulation presented here made me very angry, not just because of the attempt, but because of the implication that this is what the mind which wrote these words thinks will work. We're apparently that gullible, that we're not going to see what this really means?

The average “hard core” Kingdom Death player tends to be far more insightful; thoughtful and interested in details than most gamers. They're tenacious, able to overcome setbacks and push forward, learning from them and using that knowledge for future success. They're not the kind of people who sit there grinning while this is shoved in their mouths – this game hooked some very intelligent people, all that this kind of update is going to do is insult and anger members of the community and further alienate or grow the disenfranchised portion. Not good.

It's an absolute disaster, worse than the previous update that came earlier this month and I am so saddened by this portion. So much that I don't want to dwell on it further as such, we'll give the opener a failing grade and move onto the latter part, which is clearly written by a different author. One who should have been the sole writer on this update in my opinion.

OK, so it's been a day since I started writing this and I had to walk away from the update and concentrate on the King's Man guide for next week because this just made me angry on so many levels; angry for the attempts at censoring, angry for the way it talked at me, angry for the way it talked at the community, angry that the Dark Herald's first update would have such a huge pile of sabotage stuck at the front of it – just, no, none of that ever had to be written.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I had to go and spend some time looking at something from this game which tried in earnest and failed; in order to remind myself that good things can come out of this, that the game is not its creator and it's a great creation that deserves attention. Sigh.

Anyway, on with the Dark Herald portion of this piece...

Praise where praise is due, this person's writing style is absolutely fantastic. While the content covered is a mix of stuff we already know with a few new pieces, the prose flows well and it is a good read. This individual is what one would call a writer and they're a fine one to boot. What's written here is engaging, it's presented in an interesting style and there's some good hype building in between things. Even the topic choice is smart, the community has a section which is very disengaged from the Gambler's Chest because it is not the content they backed for at the start (I'm in that portion of the community) so having a look at Campaigns of Death, even if some of it is stuff we already knew, is a smart choice. I'm 100% A-OK with a refresher for the first Dark Herald update.

Now we not only have a complete list of all the categories of content that's going to be included, but we also have an affirmation of the goals behind the book. It's seeking to update rules and technical portions, but also bring adjustments to underused content. Wonderful, I think it is always a marvellous move to take stuff that's not used and improve it so it can offer more options. It's a delight when a game presents multiple valid routes for development and knowing that Campaigns of Death is aiming to do that is great. Clear goals for the expansion have been set and we also know what we're going to see inside the expansion in general terms with that list.

The new monsters touted are the Ancient Butcher, the Dung Beetle Baron, the Verdant Lord, the Vocal Spidicules and the Infant Sunstalker. The Ancient Butcher and Vocal Spidicules have been distinguished from the others with the label of being a 'Core Monster' which is an intriguing note. I'd also just like to say that the Vocal Spidicules miniature is just fantastic. It's one of the most grimly fascinating pieces that any of the KDM sculpting team has put together, it really captures the  bleak and cheerless reality of what happens to a Spidicules which is turned into a Legless Ball. It also seems to hint that a dismembered Spidicules is capable of regrowing lost limbs – as it should be entirely without limbs, yet it has a shortened front left arm. We'll see, it's a campaign that I'm very excited about because of how much it appears to have in common with my now defunct (since I learnt about this) People of the Silk campaign.

We've seen those sculpts before, so there's not much new to note there. The Dung Beetle Baron is based on the TOM artwork, so perhaps TOM (The Old Master) is the Dung Beetle Baron after it slew all of its people due to the dementia it is suffering from? And I wonder how the Ancient Butcher grows so large, does it need to go through a moulting when it gains enough lanterns? Are there discarded Butcher shells somewhere out there across the landscape, just waiting to be mined for scrap. Perhaps Butchers are crabs underneath all that metal?

I don't have much to say about the Verdant Lord; there's an interestingly vacant/alien look to the creature's sculpt which feels empty. If that is played up further in the campaign it'll be an interesting one to play. Though I remain concerned that an armor set which requires a fair amount of chance and luck to complete may be essential to beating the Verdant Lord and balancing a monster to be able to withstand Green Armor without automatically crushing survivors that don't have it is going to be a tough line to walk.

While we've seen many of this pictures before, I think it's fine to include them here because you're talking about Campaigns of Death as a whole and setting up a baseline for the content with a refresher in it is an eminent move.

We next have the hard plastic for the Intimacy Couples “Amanda” & “Steve”. The sculptor has undertaken a fantastic level of characterisation for these two individuals. The difference between the grim, aggressive Stars versions and the more measured and zen-like Sun versions is wonderful to see. Smoking isn't cool, but Sun Steve might just be the exception to that.

The Warriors of the Sun are plastic versions of the old resins, there are a few adjustments here and there, with the female Warrior of the Sun no longer looking so derp-tastic anymore. While I don't think they're the best that the Kingdom Death range has to offer and they are never going to wow onlookers. They are definitely a couple of steps up from their resin predecessors.

The Dark Flower Armor set is the next piece and it, along with the Skyking armor consists of one of the confirmed cross-over armor sets. In this case it's for campaigns with the Slender Man and the Flower Knight and well, if KDM previously skirted around acknowledging that Dark Souls is a big reason it exists. Not any more! The Dark Flower Armor has that ludicrously cool style that some of the most fun Dark Souls pieces use.

That Great Helm in particular is spectacular, the sketches we saw before looked good, but these two models have taken that concept art and really brought it to life. I am also excited to actually have reasons to return to fighting the Flower Knight that are not just 'it's easy to farm', 'I want Otherworldly Luck' and 'We're making Green Armor'.

I've always loved how the Slender Man has deep cross synergies with the core campaign monsters; and even though it belongs to another IP; it's always wonderful to see this creepypasta creature get another slam dunk set of synergies confirmed. One does have to feel a little sad for the King's Man though, it seems we know which of the two nemesis options is the favourite child of the design team, and it's not the Clockwork Tin Soldier that's for sure.

Speaking of which; we have another synergy for the Slender Man presented in this update, and it's the most substantial portion of the new content. The Lonely Tree is going to get synergies with both the Dragon King and the Slender Man. Neat!

The revealed synergy with Kingdom Death's best boi is a modification to the Nightmare Fruit when it is present, with the tree's fruit being volatile, the explosion that occurs when you hit them is quite dangerous. One would assume that this modifier occurs during the encounters with the tree as a terrain piece, but they may be fight modifiers. I can only assume that this is the tip of the spear in respect to how the radiation leaked by the loneliest god affects the tree.

The Slender Man interactions have more details; it seems that the Lonely Lady miniature (or perhaps a new, slenderererer version of her) will be used during the fight. This Slender Figure adds an additional element to the game – with her being deployed on the board suddenly we have another monster that employs a minion. In this case it's a variant of the dreamlike figure that's present in the Lonely Tree's opening story text. Mechanically it's also very interesting because of how threatening its attacks are compared to most other minions. This Slender Figure goes after the target with the highest Insanity and punishes them for having a large number with a huge amount of damage. It's going to be great to play with items that reduce sanity in order to manage this fight. I do hope we get more.

I'd also like to point out that the Slender Soil card above has some interesting narrative implications in that it states: “If you now have 20+ Insanity, you stop resisting. Suffer -2 to all rolls for this dream.” Meaning that perhaps with the Slender Man around the Lonely Tree may attack like a nemesis monster with dream based encounters. So it'll keep coming back over and over until it's felled. If that's the case, very cool. Because the tree has always been difficult to encounter during normal campaigns.

We do also need to address what seems to have been lost; Campaigns of Death originally came out with a pitch that said it was a kind of 'build your own campaign' toolbox books with a node system to help do that. We're not seeing much evidence that exists any more, it would have been great to get a little focus in that direction, but instead we just have more leaning into the existing confirmed content which seems to be strain focused. I am still not engaged with Strains because it is an attempt to lodge a legacy system into a game that didn't have one at inception. I am willing to be proven wrong, but the promotional Strains system stuff hasn't inspired, instead it's left a bit of a stain on the game.

Perhaps we'll see another update down the line that returns to this 'build your own world' mechanic that was originally pitched. I am hopeful that is the case.

Still, I would call all of this Dark Herald portion of the update an overall positive. I look forward to the Dark Herald's next update as their style of prose is a significant step up over the normal fare we get from the KDM Updates. I was overjoyed by their use of one of my favourite words 'bevy' and their writing at a whole is mature and descriptive in a way that compliments and enhances the game. Whomever they are, I hope they eventually take over all of the update writing work for the Kingdom Death updates (as long as it doesn't distract them too much from working on content like the Inverted Mountain) because they are a writer of an exceptional standard.

So, please, be kind to the Dark Herald; they did a great job considering how badly primed the reader is after that opening section and I am looking forward to their next update, one which I hope will be free from Adam's writing so it can breath and shine on its own.