Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 7 Lanternism Knowledges (Patreon)

As mentioned last time, the core mechanic of Lanternism surrounds Death Tokens, these are another of those nebulous pile of tokens that are represented by the generic tokens which come in the box. Just like survival tokens (and unlike reroll tokens), death tokens have no intrinsic mechanical ability without an associated way of utilising them; this tends to be positioned on Knowledges (but sometimes can be on gear). So when one is using Lanternism one is seeking to not just find ways to generate death tokens, one is also aiming to find ways to use them. This means knowledges that passively give us death tokens without need for additional steps will rank higher than those that either don't generate tokens or require a jump through some form of hoop to get going.

Before we get to the knowledges I do want to mention that for those of you who really enjoy Death Token and Lanternism mechanics the Cenobite Leotard and Cenobite Thurible which are both in the Dark of Star beta content box have further interactions with Death Tokens that can supplement strategies here. They also have such sights to show you. So go on, open the Lament Configuration and let them in.

Death Collector

• Type: Stat Boost
• Stages: 3
• Observations Required: 1/3/-
• Advancement: Activate a Fallen Lantern
• Lumi Costs: 1/1/2
• Bonuses: Theory/+1 strength, +1 accuracy/+1 strength, +1 accuracy & +1 evasion
• Parallels: Survival of the Fittest, Age bonuses

Death Collector is our core tenet for Lanternism and it's probably the biggest damp squib of the entire knowledge line (as reflected by its low lumi cost, though I will immediately point out that Death Collector I is over costed for something that does nothing and needs a death to advance observations). Not only is advancing this tenet an exceedingly costly process due to all those deaths, but getting to the end of this entire process is a collection of stat boosts. While the stats we're gaining here are decent, they're nothing amazing considering the cost of getting here (Note: this is also the only Lanternism knowledge that requires levelling up).

This is not a good table to be rolling on as it is unreliable. The Insanity Gains can be nice vs. things like the Crimson Crocodile, but having a knowledge create something that not only needs a death, but also hurts you 20% of the time is a really weak option.

The other snag is what was discussed last time, Lanternism asks that you keep your death count as low as possible during the early game in order to unlock its best knowledge. So this mechanic that requires dead survivors is just awkward and not a knowledge I am interested in utilising in any hurry. There are some synergies with Homicidalism and we'll get to them when we look at that Philosophy, but for now I think it's best just to leave it with a statement that this is an unimpressive knowledge and one of the weaker options in Lanternism.

Light Whisperer

• Type: Passive Death Token Generation & Hit Location Scouting
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: None
• Advancement: None
• Lumi Costs: 2
• Bonuses: Scout Hit locations, 10% chance of losing Death Token and suffering Frenzy
• Parallels: Cat Eye Circlet, Trash Crown, Necromancer Eye and similar

Before we get into the mechanics of Light Whisperer. I'd like to briefly discuss the art on the card, which has this trio of 'masked' entities(?) in the background.

Art elements like this are forms of passive world building that are always worth taking a look at and like many portions of Kingdom Death's world they echo our own history and mythologies. In this case we have a “three fates” or “three witches” trio who also each wear a crown of thorns like the one which is depicted as being placed upon Jesus of Nazareth's head. The three faces/masks also have minor element differences between them, but with the Light Whisperer text across the forehead of the middle top one it is hard to fully work out the variations in their forehead pattern here. Especially because the middle top one would be the most important of the trio due to its position and dominance of the entire scene as a whole. I would expect that it has a theme tied to green affinities as the left one is Red (Blood) and the right one is Blue (Third Eye). I really wish I could find a clean original of this piece but it seems KyuYong Eom hasn't posted it online so far.

I don't think any of us could claim any accurate answers as to who these are right now, they don't match any of the descriptions from the Constellations and while the Ethereal Dreamer has three facets, whales are the symbol most linked to that entity and there's also a lot of trios in this game as a reoccurring theme. So, at this point I think the main point is just to take note of them and see if we see any other appearances in the future.

Mechanically this knowledge gives you a Death Token passively, which is a  great assist early on when you don't have the set up to generate a lot of Death Tokens elsewhere and then its main use is a form of hit location scouting, where you can see a number of hit locations which match your total number of Death Tokens. After that there's a 10% chance you suffer the Frenzy Trauma (which can help Deadism's core tenet) and lose a Death Token. Quick sidebar; You can ignore the frenzy trauma with Dark of Star's Cenobite Leotard.

I don't think I need to belabour how powerful Hit Location scouting is as a mechanic and this one doesn't have a fixed amount, instead is limited only by the number of Death Tokens you can generate. As we've seen with Insanity, armor points and survivor stats, any time the game doesn't put a cap on how high you can go there's potential for breaking the game. More on that later.

So, given that this Knowledge is doing one of the most powerful things in the game; giving players access to perfect information and thereby removing one of the Game's biggest advantages, I can easily call this one of the standout knowledges in Lanternism and it's super low priced to boot.

Light Warrior

• Type: Passive Death Token Generation, Temporary Strength Boost
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: None
• Advancement: None
• Lumi Costs: 2
• Bonuses: Activate for Temporary +2 Strength on next attack, 10% chance of Death Token loss plus Frenzy
• Parallels: Nuclear Scythe/Knife, Polishing Lantern

Before we get into it, I did want to quickly note I love the design of the axe and hat in the artwork.

The passive Death Token generated here is always welcome, however the ability we get here lands in that category of 'spend an activation to gain more temporary strength' and most of the time sacrificing an activation for a higher strength is a place where the juice is not worth the squeeze.

However, as mentioned in Light Whisperer above, utilising something that has no hard cap has a lot of potential, so for survivors who can generate a great deal of Death Tokens getting to secure 2+ wounding rolls is very meaningful. Every Death Token is +2 extra strength and this extra strength doesn't go away when the round advances, it lasts until your next attack in the showdown. That means you can use this when out of position (unable to reach the monster) and you can also utilise it even if you are unable to surge. All of that, along with this knowledge allowing for low strength but powerful ability weapons to suddenly compete and be viable on the showdown makes this all very meaningful.

All of that means Light Warrior might be an underwhelming Knowledge early on when you have not many sources for Death Tokens, but when you get further into the Philosophy and find more ways of generating them this can be an incredibly potent tool for a focused warrior seeking to trade action quantity for quality.

Light Eater

• Type: Death Token Generation, Frenzy Trigger
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: None
• Advancement: None
• Lumi Costs: 3
• Bonuses: Gain Death Token, Spend Activation to Frenzy, May use when Frenzied
• Parallels: Frenzy Drink

Overpriced, limited in scope, about the only real good thing on this is for survivors who are seeking to suffer brain traumas without rolling on the trauma table in the first place (like Deadism) or certain Frenzy focused builds. Even then I don't much want to pay 3 Lumi and give up a Knowledge slot for this. Honestly I don't have much more to write about this one, I've used it for the Death Token when I haven't been able to find a better source but always replaced it when I can.

This just doesn't do enough here to justify it costing 3 Lumi and a slot, though it is a Consume synergy, which is worth remembering. I'd be very interested to read if any of you have found a way to leverage this knowledge.

Lantern's Souls

• Type: Affinity Generator
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: -/-
• Advancement:
• Lumi Costs: 2
• Bonuses: When Departing +1 affinity of your choice
• Parallels: None

This is another piece of art that's worth making note of for future due to the card's text, We have a combination of a skull head (which doesn't seem to be the Reaper due to having two eyes) a hand crown and vines snaking out of the survivor's body. I'd speculate here that this is a representation of  Kingdom Death (Crown + Skull) and its relation to the survivors (the body representing the land with vines representing the lantern tubes snaking out across the land. It's also very reminiscent thematically to the Parasite Queen. Who is also heavily linked to lanterns and vines. So this is an interesting piece even if right now we don't get a full picture in respect to how it all fits in. File this under interesting for the future.

As for what this does, it's simple and very strong. +1 affinity of your choice when departing is huge. There's a whole bunch of builds that struggle to come together in a satisfying fashion because they need extra affinities. The most obvious of these are Blue Charm builds and things that directly call the number of X colour affinities such as Monster Grease. As I've often mentioned, slots are one of the largest limitations for survivors at a certain point and getting an extra affinity from somewhere outside of your gear tableau is huge. This isn't just an extra affinity of a single colour, it's flexible in that you decide what it is on departure from the settlement.

Simple, understated and powerful in what it can unlock, this is a solid workhorse and one that I'm happy to unlock and use due to how flexible and useful it can be. Would you take a gear card that read something like “You can have one less knowledge slot, this gear can be placed outside your gear grid and gives you +1 affinity of your choice when departing – for the crafting cost of 2 lumi”? I would.

Light Stealer

• Type: Death Token Generator
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: -
• Advancement: -
• Lumi Costs: 1
• Bonuses: 80% chance of generating a death token, limit monster level times per showdown.
• Parallels: None

Before we get into it, I'd like to note that the wording on this one is a little wonky. One could interpret this as activating a maximum of [Monster Level] per showdown, or that it can activate repeatedly until you reach [Monster Level] Death Tokens. I suspect it is the former, if it is the latter then the value of this Knowledge does go up. When playing I assumed it was the worse of the two options because that matches other % chance of doing nothing options that come in this game, so that's what we'll do here.

[Monster Level] attempts to get a Death Token 80% of the time is on rate for 1 Lumi, but that's without considering the other costs involved in this Knowledge. Which are the slot that it eats up not just on the survivor's sheet, but also in the settlement knowledge deck. My time playing KDM has made me very aware of slot limitations, both Gear and Fighting Art slot limitations have often caused build issues and my constant battle with innovation deck bloat covers the other part. As such I really do not want to unlock this knowledge because it's low power and unreliable. A disappointment for a knowledge unlocked at Rank 3 and probably the lowest point of this entire philosophy outside of the rolls that kill you, but at least it gives you death tokens (most of the time) without requiring another survivor to be dead first.

Ghostzerker

• Type: Death Token Generator
• Stages: 1
• Observations Required: -/-
• Advancement: None
• Lumi Costs: 5
• Bonuses: All Tokens are now Death Tokens
• Parallels: None

After all of this we now get to the crown jewel of Lanternism and the reason why I urge lanternism settlements to keep their death count as low as possible until it is unlocked. Ghostzerker is an incredibly powerful tool that gives you access to extra Death Tokens by turning all your tokens into Death Tokens in addition to their original properties. Stat Tokens, Bleed Tokens, Tokens dumped onto you by monsters, reroll tokens, survival tokens. The list goes on and on; plus it will continue to grow as more token types are added to the game.

Ghostzerker is what fuels Light Whisperer and Light Warrior and can push those two knowledges to crazy heights. As there is no limitation on the number of tokens a survivor can have (though of course some particular tokens might kill your survivor if they get too many of them). For a single activation one could reach enough strength to wound even 30 toughness monsters on a 2+ with Light Warrior or reveal and reorganise the entirehit location deck in whatever order suits the survivors best. This is what Lanternism is all working towards and without it the Knowledges are a somewhat lacklustre selection.

Oh and it can't be shut off when you're frenzied thanks to being Subconcious.

In concert with other portions of Lanternism this is one of the best Knowledges in the game and worthy of jumping through that 5 Lumi cost.

Summary

Lanternism is not as even across the board as Faceism in respect to its power levels, Faceism has some standouts, but no real duffers. Lanternism on the other hand does have some weak spots, but there is nothing in Faceism that comes close to the sheer game distorting power of Ghostzerker plus Light Whisperer/Warrior. In that it's easier to think of Lanternism as a mountain to climb, you're going to have to work to get there, but once you've reached Ghostzerker you are rewarded with some incredible results. 

So as a whole I am impressed with Lanternism as it is something which builds the world lore in a fascinating manner in addition to giving us tools that reward creativity by giving tokens a new texture and depth.