People of the Stars: Part 1 Kingdom Death's Best Boy, The Tyrant (Patreon)

Before we move into this; I think it's best to give you all a reminder that when we dive into lore there's always going to be a fair amount of speculation that has to be built on the themes, artwork and underlying real world links that Kingdom Death's lore design has. Even when dealing with the actual in game lore text there are still issues present because at least some of the tales told involve unreliably narrators or fables and even when they don't we've seen many circumstances where Adam Poots Games decide to revise/retcon aspects of the world to better fit their updated vision.

Where I am using the direct text from the game; I'll use italic text in patreon's quote system and include the source, where it's not in italics it's all based on real world/historical influences and/or my interpretation of what we have been given.

This is particularly important when dealing with an Entity like The Tyrant; capital E entities are big players in the game's lore and appear to reference singular individuals rather than the lower case e entities such as Sunstalkers (as for where The Sun lands in that; it's an ancient entity in a very long lived race, so it's kind of around the same section as Watchers; and really don't ask me where the Flower Knight lands, we still don't know if that is one Entity or multiple entities – the Gold Smoke Knight muddied things a lot there).

Regardless of this aside; The Tyrant is a big old named character and is a singular Entity like the big players such as The Storm, The Gambler, The Goblin and similar (We've recently learned that there are Sculptors via an in universe Barbarian Allister resin; but People of the Stars references The Sculptor – so I guess until we get more information beyond the snippet of lore below and the picture of a Sculptor on the inside cover of the rulebook we'll just have to shrug about that particular quandry. Perhaps there are multiple Sculptors working under the direction of The Sculptor in their own portion of the Plain of Stone Faces).

“Our Starting Survivor Allister, reimagined as a Stone Sword wielding barbarian! Those mad enough to hunt the Sculptors like quarry often drink its stone blood and wear pure confidence like layers of armor.” – Barbarian Allister Lore

With all of that rambling preamble over with, let us dig into the background, themes and personality of The Tyrant as he is the single most well represented and complete individual we have met in this setting to date.

“There was a monster whose only fear was to be forgotten. Driven by that terror smoldering in its heart, the monster inscribed its face in the sky with a glowing breath. All who saw it grew sick and died leaving nothing alive that could remember the monster's face.”– The Tyrant Showdown Lore

“There was once a monster that was alone in the world. Abandoned in its grief, the monster crawled deep inside its aching heart until it broke and was set aflame. Now, the power of its grief and fury pours like invisible poison from the weeping face it hides inside its hulking body.” – The Dragon King Showdown Lore

In case that the above quoted text didn't make it clear; the Dragon King is one and the same as The Tyrant. In fact; that's how he was billed in the original kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poots/kingdom-death-monster/posts/377419) we've not seen too many of these Monstrous Form/Human Form Entities to date; The Goblin/Sparrow King and The Ivory Dragon/Stan Twins are some of the other examples, but on the whole this isn't common and as we've discussed the Dragon King aspect of this individual in the past we're going to focus on the humanoid form this time.

The Tyrant's Past

There is precious little that can be gleaned about the Tyrant's past, but there are some snippets that we can garner from the above lore text and a couple of the Dragon King hunt cards. We know for sure that The Tyrant is the last of his kind, that in the past there was a glorious civilisation of Dragon Kings because in hunt event card Cultivated Crypt survivors encounter a crypt filled with the bodies of dead Dragon Kings and defiling these corpses angers the Dragon King greatly. He considers himself the guardian of the dead and that they should be given an appropriate level of respect. Of course; the Survivors, people who come from a civilisation that has existed for a meager handful of years (due to the Watchers, Gold Smoke Knight, Suns and similar entities erasing settlements that last too long) have no such respect, they see resources for the taking, they're going to grab them. The hunt card Settlement Ruins shows what happens to a settlement that experiences the wrath of the rampaging King.

The second hunt card that shows the past is the Ornate Temple; a mirage that shows the absolutely massive scale of the Dragon King civilisation; one which existed before the current age and even before the age of the White Lion/Lion God's people. The exact nature of this vision is hard to determine, but it does build on the mystery. It also provides our first piece of parallel with the Abrahamic religions.

“That which lives can never replace that which was glorious.” – Disembodied Voice. Ornate Temple Dragon King Hunt Event.

This is a reference to 2 Corinthians 3:10 and 3:11 which are:

3:10 - “For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. “

3:11 – “And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”

To be more precise it is pretty much an inversion of the text from Corinthians; whereas Paul was writing that the new covenant between man and god is superior to the old one, the disembodied voice is instead saying that the old ways were superior and what is here currently is without glory. This is just the start of the Abhramic/Judeo-Cristian references we'll find baked into The Tyrant and that is because The Tyrant is Kingdom Death's own version of Jesus Christ; a Dragon Jesus if you will. But whereas Jesus preached such practices as humility and kindness, The Tyrant firmly believes that:

“Weakness is anathema to strength.”  – Midnight's Children; Dragon King Expansion.

You see; like Christ, the Tyrant offers a rebirth to his disciples, but the Tyrant's version of this rebirth is quite literal. He intends to give his civilisation a glorious rebirth, but in order to achieve this he needs to hammer the soft, malleable forms that the Survivors come in (survivors demonstrate a lot of ways they can “mutate” during their own lives). He needs to make them powerful, able to see the stars above the way that he can, able to see the faces scorched into the sky as constellations. This is a hard and harsh process that requires not just physical strength but strength of will and character.

That is what the “Star Bingo” in People of the Stars represents, this mechanic is a checklist of milestones that the survivors go through in order to metamorphose from “normal” survivors into nascent dragonlings. For reference; here is that bingo chart:

As you achieve each of the different things on this chart, you'll cross them off permanently (even if you later lose the relevant trait) and when you complete a column or row you get your “bingo” and can enjoy the reward (or “enjoy” in the case of one of these). We'll revisit this in the Campaign specific sections of this series, but for now it's enough to see that the survivors have to work and strive for certain specific things in order to become worthy for The Tyrant's final plan.

However, for now, that is as much as we can gather about The Tyrant's past, he is one of a wide people that had a glorious civilisation before (according to the lore) his arrogance and vanity caused the rest of them to die and now he remains as a radioactive final survivor of the apocalypse that exterminated the rest. He's the final star in the universe of his people.

(As a brief fun aside; my Black Lion's lore has an individual similar to the Tyrant responsible for the creation of the Black Lion variants of the White Lions. They attempted to achieve a similar thing to The Tyrant, but with White Lions, and failed.)

The Tyrant's Personality & Motivations

The driving forces behind The Tyrant's goals are grief and loneliness. Alone in a world filled with inferior beings one would call this creature mournful and desperate. As we've seen in the Dragon King portion of the lore, The Tyrant's current fate is to be attacked over and over by survivors who are after dragon bits for their shiny new armor set. But People of the Stars represents a way out; if the survivors that The Tyrant has gathered are able to achieve his plan.

By putting the survivors through a harsh, demanding life of 'only the strongest will survive' the Tyrant aims to give the survivors enough physical and mental strength to be able to accept his final gift and return his people to the world. The Tyrant is aware that he will have to die for this to succeed, but despite being a long lived people he is slowly dying or in a state near death (it's not entirely clear which; he's described as being moribund in one text and a dying god in another, however in the failure ending the Dragon King goes into an era of spiteful cruelty and destruction. Which is a long time for a dying creature to rampage around.

What is clear is that the Tyrant has placed a lot of himself into this plan and failure is not really an option for him; he is aware that survivors who do not gain constellations will perish and from his viewpoint that does not matter at all, only survivors who gain a second spirit, who have reality shattered for them and get to see a constellation of an Entity etched into the sky will be able to withstand hearing the native tongue of the People of the Stars without dying. This may seem cruel, but from the perspective of the Tyrant survivors are like ants, ants that have the potential to become the new generation of Dragon Kings and carry on his legacy, but still without an awakening they are worthless.

This whole plan is part of why we refer to the Tyrant as Dragon Jesus at times; he intends to die and have the People of the Stars devour his body (specifically his heart) in order to complete their rebirths; he knows that he will die, but is willing to do that in order to bring back his people because an eternity (at least one whole massive civilisation seems to have flourished and died out in the period since the Dragon Kings walked the plains); an eternity alone is not a fate that he desires anymore. It seems he's spent a long time planning this rebirth and considers it his 'last chance'.

The Tyrant Expressed in the Showdown

Like all monsters with a showdown encounter, there is a great deal of personality baked into how the Tyrant behaves when fighting him. The Tyrant replaces the fixed nemesis encounters and represents an opportunity for the survivors to directly learn from their benefactor in ritual combat. This entire showdown is a very one sided affair, the survivors cannot harm the Tyrant in any meaningful manner, but he is not holding back, if someone dies then they were not good enough to ascend.

The Tyrant continues the themes of stars and celestial bodies set by the Dragon King, but also interlaces a lot of religious and mentoring segments into the cards. Words here and there demonstrate this blend that creates a 'religion of the stars'. Another theme baked in here is also present in the Dragon King fight and that is the concept of radiation as an invisible attacking force. The Tyrant employs it through ranged attacks on cards like Unseen Slice/Horror/Blow. The physics concept of resonance is another element employed by the Tyrant for some of its mechanics.

One of the major mechanics of the showdown is the Tyrant locomoting through the showdown via short warp portals; this act leaves behind a statue of the Tyrant which acts as the gate for the tunnel and provides a way for survivors to catch up. However; the more of these statues that are left on the battlefield, the more powerful the Tyrant's attacks become, and also the greater the rewards for survivors who attack the Tyrant while leaving statues intact. We'll discuss this more when breaking down the showdown, but in essence here they are another way that the Tyrant scales up his power and challenge to the survivors. If they meet this challenge by not destroying the statues; therefore taking the easy route, survivors will be rewarded with additional gifts from the Tyrant. Display strength and the Tyrant will reward.

The Celestial Challenge/Test/Trial is another way that survivors are tested by the Tyrant; being able to wound the Tyrant (even if weakened by other dragon trait gifts) results in “loving benediction” - the utterance of a blessing; giving the survivor the Noble trait/surname. There is even more gifts for the survivor who is able to draw blood from the Tyrant with the Deathblow card (Celestial Scarred Heart – which is in itself a reference to how the Tyrant's heart is broken and torn with grief and age).  We also have the AI card Gaze of Sorrow to further the mournful aspects of the Tyrant and this is in addition to the Tyrant having an extraordinary level of mood cards – he really is in quite the mood all the time.

It is also worth noting that the Tyrant demonstrates a form of command over the Harvesters; as the L3 Tyrant encounter includes a terrifying Harvester Incantation card that calls one and ends the showdown with a Harvester devouring all the survivors. The Tyrant himself is unharmed by this act; a further demonstration of just how much he is pulling his punches during this fight, no survivor could combat the current versions of the Harvester that we have in this world and survive long enough to slay it. It's like trying to kill a Shai-Hulud, it's on a different scale – a Shai-Hulud requires an atomic bomb or a high-voltage electrical shock delivered to each ring segment (and the Harvester is based on Dune's Sandworms, so that's a good scale to understand how massive and powerful they are).

(I'd also like to note that it is possible that the Tyrant is able to reach into the Slender Men's home dimension; because the Virulent Incantation calls a 'black, oily darkness to devour a survivor'. There are thematic and mechanical links between the Slender Men and this card; but it's not enough to be confident to declare that is truly the case.)

His miniature also has a lot to say, both in respect to his personality and the allegory of his design. The Tyrant's sculpt has a few prominent features and we'll walk through some of them here. His bald nature reflects both what happens when someone suffers from extreme radiation exposure while also providing that wise mentor look that characters like Professor X have.

He has several elements of Christian symbology; including his robes, walking cane and the celestial diadem on his back, which not only is something you'll often see in depictions of saints, but it also echoes his horns in Dragon King form, as does his exposed chest and abdomen (exposing his heart to the world). This curved horn look is something that turns up when referencing dragon gods elsewhere, most notably when looking at Nicol Bolas from Magic: The Gathering.

His cane is likewise a Christian symbolical reference; as many of the more religious references in Kingdom Death tend to draw from. APG draw a lot of references from Christianity alongside Pop Culture. Walking sticks and canes are something that often turns up; for example Saint Patrick, who was said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland famously has one. The snakes in his story are a metaphor for paganism.

Next time we'll have part two of this slosh around People of the Stars; where we move through the mechanics of People of the Stars, highlight the extra themes not covered here and also provide a primer on how one can navigate the campaign with the highest chance of successfully creating multiple constellations.