Here we are at the start of a new journey – hopefully, many even – of which most will lead straight into the heart of this ever growing darkness. As of writing this it has been almost exactly a year since I received my so eagerly awaited Kingdom Death: Monster Core Game. Since then I have been charmed by the allure of its unapologetic style of art and gameplay, and I find myself drawn to anime-esque plastic figures of men and women fighting for their survival beset by monsters, forced to hunt in a harsh and unforgiving world of unseen terrors.

To quote the game’s rulebook:

“Monster is a game about the fragility of human life, the ferocity of the human spirit, and the wonder of exploration.”

I’m sure most people reading this will likely know about the game, but, on the off-chance you don’t, Kingdom Death let’s you control a settlement of survivors trying to live in a nightmare-world of unbroken darkness. With events governed by the will of the dice, groups of 4 are sent out at a time to hunt fierce monsters, harvest their hide and bones and collectively craft from these remains armor, weapons and a fleeting culture in what time has been allotted to you. You are the bottom of the food chain, yet you can try to outgrow the dangers surrounding you.

To a degree that is.

The world will catch up, you may trip and break your bones, the ground may swallow you whole as an earthquake hits or you could just end up in belly of a White Lion you had foolishly underestimated.
Or you may just live long enough to be able to meet a being beyond any comprehension.

The Dragon King is still my favorite Monster design that has been released so far, the Phoenix being a close second. There are a few yet to be released monsters that are up there as well, though.

What is it that I want to do here?

Ideally, be entertaining. In any case I want to showcase my time with the game. Having enjoyed it from opening the box for the first time to this very day, I am looking for any reason or excuse to lay it out across the table and start a new settlement. And another one. And another one.

(Something besides the Squire Campaign, at this point)

Settlement’s will likely fail, and I will likely make dumb decisions, but that is part of the ride. I find myself often a slave to theme and stories unfolding and KD:M is a perfect vessel for a player such as I.

That does not mean I don’t want to win. So far, you can check on my statistics page – I have started several settlements, both alone and with friends, and fought the Watcher a grand total of twice and the Gold Smoke Knight once. Although that was in my second settlement ever so I’m feeling good on the GSK meet-up.

I have also finished a People of the Stars campaign, posting all of it to Instagram – which ultimately led me here, a space of my own.

And whilst I enjoyed the experience, the limit to 10 pictures and I don’t know how much text, did not really work out for what I wanted to do.

Anything else?

I would also like to show off some of my amateur-ish painting. I hadn’t picked up a brush in years, but recent events showed my that I can still manage to paint a decent looking survivor.

_{I know they aren’t top shelf quality, but I’m happy nonetheless.}

_{Nothing suspicious here. Nothing at all.}

And finally I would like to show off the survivors I have build over the last year. With the game transitioning to larger sculpts in more dynamic poses – which is a good thing by itself, I think the old armor sets get an unjustified bad rep from a lot of people. And whilst I will admit to ever-so-often there being the awkwardly stiff looking survivor, you could do so much with so little to make those models really cool.

Also, the Frogdog N1 armor proved a bit of a point to me, the models and their poses are much more limited than the old ones. Sure you can always do some work with a little bit of violence and patience but, to me at least, it felt easier with the old sets.
Of course, the new sculps are far prettier and more detailed, and I don’t think they are a bad move generally speaking, I just liked the highly modular nature of the old sets.

_{Have you met ‘the Band’?}

If you made it this far, thank you very much for sticking with me and I hope I could entice you into coming back as I will prepare a People of the Lantern campaign soon-ish (as soon as I have built both armor sets) featuring both doggos – the Black Knight replacing the Hand as the N3 Nemesis and the Frogdog as a N1 Quarry.
If that doesn’t get you to come back, maybe the Feline Entity’s antics will.

But this is it for now, I’ll be back in a couple of days as I get stuff up and running and my timetable opens up for the new settlement.., or at least shifts around.

Thank you very much for your time and may your lantern shine brightly,
Amathul