Dream Eaters: Saviors in Kingdom Death (Patreon)

“Saviors are undaunted heroes, single minded and suicidally reckless in their quest to make a change in mankind's horrible existence. This meteoric existence ensures their lifespan will be short but bright.

The Saviors unwavering guiding star is a shared destiny to change the world for the better. Their eyes constantly open to the tormented existence of others, they dedicate the whole of their being to others. Each act of heroism intoxicates the Saviors, delirious from the heady realization of their higher purpose they are emboldened to greater risks to their own safety. Saviors seek to symbolize hope in a dark and drab world, often adopting bright bizarre garb to match their stations as self-appointed heroes of mankind.

In their dreams Saviors travel to an entity they call the Ethereal Dreamer. Nightly, they trudge through the twisting scape of the world's collective nightmares seeking the Dreamer's secrets of power and magic. Over time their dream pilgrimage leaves the Savior threadbare; their feet become sooty and gnarled , their faces sallow with deep shadows under their eyes. Saviors who exceed their expected lifespan eventually begin to fade bit by bit, devoured by the dream world that once empowered them.”

– – Lore text for Snow

One of the original player classes pitched for the (currently) vaporware board game (which is looking less and less likely to get released with each passing year) that is Kingdom Death: Labyrinth. As a design, saviors trade lifespan for power, which makes them living examples of the saying 'the flame that burns brightest, burns shortest'. Conceptually they are survivors who at the point of birth are pulled into the realm of the ethereal dreamer, when they return they have already spent a lifetime of existence in that other place and are now graced with a power way beyond anything that a normal survivor could comprehend.

There are currently just two ways that a survivor can transform into a Savior, the first involves a rare birth event in a Watcher based settlement, the second involves any survivor ingesting a drifting dream fruit from a high level lonely tree, we'll talk more about this second event later on in the mechanical discussion of this article piece, but lore-wise this particular fruit represents the produce from a lonely tree luring in and devouring a savior. The Lonely Tree itself is quite tightly tied to the Ethereal Dreamer's realm because it also employs similar methods, a bewitched survivor who has been drawn to the tree will live a lifetime in their dreams as they slumber at the base of the tree. What this means in specific for the world's lore I'll touch back on in a while, but for now, remember this.

For most saviors however, they come into existence only in Watcher based settlements that have developed hovels, conceptually Bed would have been the more realistic innovation to bring saviors into the world, but mechanically hovel allows for earlier access to hovels. I've never managed to tease a solid thematic reason for why it is hovels that enables the birth of a savior, the closest I've found so far is that the Greek gods Hypnos and Morpheus sleep in caves, which are natural shelters – but I am more inclined to think that this is a mechanical piece of design rather than a thematic one. Hovel ensures that saviors can turn up more often and earlier in a campaign. Still, if anyone interviews Adam, ask him why it's hovel that brings saviors into the world and not bed, thanks!

So the current running theory for what's happening at the heart of the Plain of Stone Faces is the links between the Watchers, the Ethereal Dreamer and the Gold Smoke Knight. We know from 'word of god' (Adam) that the Gold Smoke Knight is the guardian of the lands – sort of an “elemental knight” to quote Adam's description. But that some currently undisclosed foe unleashed the Watchers upon the land, the Watchers function to continuously erase history and keep the Plain of Stone Faces in a sort of stasis where settlements exist just to feed the needs of various monsters and entities. This is a unique facet of this particular Plain because the Holy Lands nearby have their own form of “civilisation” (if you can call the horrors they commit civilisation) and the protection of their forces has kept their lands free of Watchers.

However, within the Plain of Stone Faces Watchers are the dominant force (along with the Regal legions of The Squire), and the entire Plain has taken a sort of dream-like aspect to it. The Watchers themselves are overtly linked to this dreaming aspect, they seed ideas to the survivors through this, they are the key element that allows for Saviors to be created (plus Lonely Trees, which we'll get to in a moment) and as such I have posited that the Ethereal Dreamer is the entity who is responsible for the creation of the Watchers. I've even gone a little further and linked the sky whale which appears in Overwhelming Darkness (and other places like the upcoming Smog Singers) is the physical representation of the Ethereal Dreamer itself. This would be part of why a ground based defender of the lands like the Gold Smoke Knight has found itself helpless. The Gambler's Chest should provide a lot more information on this, just as it will likewise spill the beans on the Regal Legion (King, Hand etc). So maybe we get some answers in 2023? Unless we get more delays announced.

I am however pretty confident that the evolution of the Lonely Trees is directly because of the Ethereal Dreamer, not only does this creature use dreams as a part of its lure/feeding mechanism, but also almost every single fruit that comes from the Tree uses words like Nightmare or Dream in their names. So I would propose that the Lonely Tree(s) represent Nightmare Trees (see that Nightmare word again) that have been further changed by the dream-like infestation that is endemic to this plain.

What does this mean for saviors though? Well I would like to put forward that while maybe the source of their powers is probably a malignant one, they themselves are not deliberately created, they're more of an unintended side-effect caused by the combination of the malaise infecting the world and proximity to Watchers. They are like Neo in the Matrix (before everything in that series sadly disappeared up its own butt), an anomaly that cannot be ironed out and is also free thinking. It's certain that saviors trend towards acts of enormous altruism as we can see in the text for the various 20, 40 and 80 year resin savior releases.

Saviors are undaunted heroes, single minded and suicidally reckless in their quest to make a change in mankind's horrible existence. In their dreams Saviors visit the domain of the Ethereal Dreamer which grants them wondrous knowledge at a startling price. Tapping greater power causes their bodies to age rapidly. As they delve deeper into the collective dream they leave more of themselves behind. Mighty Saviors will grow frail and appear faded at their edges, vanishing slowly at the height of their power. – – 20 Year Savior Lore

The Savior ages represent their willful march toward oblivion. The 40 Year Savior has traded the vigor of youth for mighty deeds. She is a legend, word of her heroism precedes her and her arrival is a celebration. The soles of her feet are sooted from dream travel but her step is sure-footed and her trail turns sorrow to joy. – 40 Year Female Savior Lore

The 40 Year Savior has traded the vigor of youth for mighty deeds. Wherever his soot stained footsteps lead, legends follow. With a mighty howl he has felled creatures of torment, turning sorrow to joy. – – 40 Year Male Savior Lore

The 80 Year Savior is at once potent with power and gnarled by many lost years. Her body decrepit, the strength of her ability tremendous but threatening to erase her altogether. A Savior drunk with power may find herself withered and gray in minutes. Her frail feet are completely black, and her eyes look out past the world to the dream she now mostly inhabits. – – 80 Year Savior Lore

Also recently the release of Wendy The Frozen Star, Savior Of The Lifelight continues this trend:

Our new holiday sculpture depicts Wendy, master of the Frozen Star secret fighting art posed atop a festive snowman in her snow covered settlement. Hailed as a hero for confronting the Coldinosaur on the field of black ice and frozen blood. She safely returrned with the lifelight, a sacred power source for the Rotted Boiler her and her people live atop for warmth. – – Wendy Lore

For reference, Frozen Star is a secret fighting art learnt from the most benevolent and wonderful of entities, The Tyrant. It can be used to inflict monsters and survivors with Jack Nicholson's ultimate fate in the Shining. One of my favourite art references on a card.

Thematically, each of the three dreams that the saviors can return to the waking world with are linked to affinity colours, it seems that the affinity colours set onto gear are also thematically tied to the various campaign monsters (Watcher, Tyrant, Sun) who all have some form of campaign specific interactions with them. We have Dream of the Beast (Red) Dream of the Crown (Green) and dream of the Lantern (Blue). And we'll dig into each one's themes shortly. Now it's likely that there are plenty more dreams outside of just these three, but mechanically three seems sufficient for People of the Lantern. It does seem worth mentioning that the two waking world monsters (Sun & Tyrant) both lean towards prismatic affinities (all colours), in contrast the Watcher/Ethereal Dreamer split the affinities apart into three. There is probably not much to read into this however because People of the Bloom reduces the number of red affinities a survivor is born with and increases the number of green ones – representing a people who are less aggressive, bestial and warlike. Instead they are protective, elegant and nurturing.

The Red affinity is deeply connected to the White Lions, as we've talked about in the past, the White Lions represent the remnants of the previous civilisation, we see their architecture around the landscape in art and the Lion God/Silver City overtly demonstrate this in the artwork, gear and mechanics surrounding the Lion God expansion. Dream of the Beast prominently represents one of these creatures, but also in the background it shows one of the other major red affinity links, blood. With the mirrored spindly dream creatures holding in their hand a heart (which links with survival and bleed in the games mechanics). Hearts in particular are a common image where survival in the game is concerned, not only are they prominent in the survival actions section of the rulebook, but the Manhunter's mechanical heart allows manhunters (and survivors) to reform their bodies from base parts after death.

One other element worth highlighting is the subtle peacock feathers on the beast's neck jewellery. Peacock feathers are linked strongly with survivors who age quickly and also with a monster that can control time and speed up aging (The Phoenix).

The eyes of this White Lion are replaced with swords, which both represents war and also a blindness to seeing anything other than war. The Silver City did appear to hold a very warlike race, most of the gear that comes from the Lion God spelunking celebrates martial prowess, it's likely that they became blinded by their wars and conflict and didn't see what was happening to their civilisation back home.

It's also worth briefly noting the strong aquatic vibes that the spindly creature in the backdrop has. Aquatic elements are a common theme across the board in Kingdom Death and we've discussed in the past just how much of this game borrows from the concept of the deep abysses that exist in the fathoms far, far beneath the surface.

In Dream of the Crown's artwork we have the concept of a crown of thorns/nails not just on the survivor themselves, but also in the backdrop with spiked head-pillars (something that appears in all the dream art, making it a twisted mirror of the waking world) and also the aquatic creature that appeared on the amulet/jewelry of the Beast appears in the background with spikes driven into its head. While the dream of the beast has the savior turned into an animal, the dream of the crown has the savior keep their human-like form. However the crown placed on their head (by the creature in the background?) seems to be a great burden as it encloses the survivor's entire head, leaving only her eyes visible. This experience is causing a great deal of distress to the savior, but if it is because of pain from the thorns or because the crown makes her see some truth that causes her to despair we can't be sure. It's worth briefly noting that her left hand side of the crown (and left hand) are covered in something that appears to be insects. Pheonix/Peacock feathers make an appearance on her feather mantle (a piece of Phoenix gear).

Crowns are something that rarely appear in Monster, the most prominent places they occur are in the Phoenix Crest crown, the Dragon King expansion and the Lion Knight expansion. Likewise thorns/nails as a crown are often prominent in Christian influenced works (which KD:M is a part of). The most iconic of these outside of Christ's crown of thorns is Pinhead from Hellraiser, who at times seems to have had some influence on elements of this game.

I'd also like to quickly say that I've always wanted this piece of art translated into a miniature.

Last of all we have the Dream of the Lantern. The head spike pillars make another appearance, but the aquatic spindle figure has disappeared. Replaced with a lantern that is reminiscent of Leviathan from Hellraiser II or the Master Control Program from tron. This lantern dominates the art so heavily that the savior themselves might be the second thing you notice. They appear to be constructed from smoke with their form twisted and in apparent distress. This time the Peacock feathers are placed on this individual's back making them some distorted mockery of a later Christian angel.

When it comes to their respective savior abilities, the themes of the dreams are continued. The Red saviors gain Caratosis as an ability and the Beast of Caratosis secret fighting art. This seems to reference Keratosis, which is a skin condition where keratin grows on human skin. Amongst the many different things Keratin is used for in living beings is the growth of hair/fur/feathers and that remains consistent with the theme of the dreamer becoming a lion-like beast. The lore description portion of Beast of Caratosis expands the concept further by having the survivor disappear in a shimmer of heat and gain automatic hits with high strength.

The green ability of Dormenatus gets its root in the word/concept of something being Dormant. And when activated the savior reaches into the dream and pulls out a twisting green crown which covers everyone with a rain of shards, this protects them all like a cocoon and provides them with more defense. Thorns are also a common element of the plant-life in Kingdom Death.

The third of this trio is probably the most powerful, and for blue we have lucernae, which comes from the old word lucerna and is one of the root words for lantern (Yes this secret fighting art is called Lantern's lantern). Interestingly the element drawn from the dream here is a dark, screeching skull (darker than darkness) and deals critical wounds. I must confess that at this point I've not managed to tease out why it is a screeching skull rather than a light source/lantern – but the fact that it's darker than darkness suggests that it's made of pure void, something that exists under the Watchers robes. There is probably more here, but details are insufficient until we get to explore the dream realm a bit more in the Super Saviors vs. Perfect Dung Beetle Knight vignette. 

So as we can see, the Saviors dreams link strongly to the plain of stone faces, the dream realm they wander through seems to be a twisted mirror of the waking world and they gain abilities that reflect the history and state of their waking world. There still remain many secrets to be discovered and mysteries to be resolved, so one would hope that the Gambler's Chest campaign, with its heavy leaning into dreams as a titular theme, will shed more lantern's light on the world the saviors half stand in.

Timberwolfl has supplied the details of the beta content to me this week, so I'm going to look at those next time before returning to the mechanical usages of Saviors. We'll look at how to squeeze every single last useful drop out of these unique characters, because they need to pay out well in order to compensate for the lack of weapon proficiency development!