This felt like a great idea until I had to type stuff out.

As 2024 draws to a close, so does my first full year with the game. Now, I got my hands on KD:M in September 2023, so I started playing in early September of that year and, well, I managed to see the end of that particular settlement just a week later.
The settlement sheets will be tough to read, I apologize, due to my hand-writing, it being pencil on paper and general image quality. Still, I want to post them, so bear with me please.

So.., Lantern’s Rest – my very first stab at the game – was still in 2023. With only the Core game at my disposal I set out into the darkness, more or less ready to beat up lions and antelopes. I tried to kill a cheeky phoenix shortly after it became available and learned not to do that again if I could help it. 2 people survived the encounter heavily injured, having to beat the, quite literal, shit out of the birb. Boy, did that phoenix drop a lot of bird-poop. I also had the typical new player experience as in – I lost to Butcher Lvl1 and went for the special Kingsman Lvl1 fight in year 6. I got my teeth kicked in, naturally.
Ultimately the settlement fizzled out in Lantern Year 12, not quite making it to the Hand.
NQ: WL; SA; PH – NN:TB; KM; TH – C: W – F: GSK

The Feline Entity quickly took notice of the game and decided she would become both bringer of mischief and envoy of doom.

The aptly named Founder’s Fortune was my second settlement and the first one that really took off. This settlement’s story concluded in January 2024, so it is technically a part of this year and the first proper inclusion.
Thanks to a .. serviceable .. Twilight Sword wielder, a LY21 Watcher and a fairly young Axe Master to butcher the first few monsters after the Lantern Hoard got extinguished, I was able to cruise past the Watcher and take aim at an even greater foe, in only my second ever settlement. In general this should be taken with a grain of salt, though, I typically don’t care too much about spoilers for myself – so I knew a bunch of stuff about the mid-game at this point, the best way to fight the Hand for instance.
Most memorable parts include killing a Phoenix Lvl3 with Weapon Mastery: Axe auto-crits, only to realize during the hunt afterwards against another Phoenix Lvl3 without the axe master present that none of my survivors could crit the thing and getting party-wiped for it, as well as losing 3 of 4 people from a group of newbies to time flowing backwards in yet another Phoenix hunt before running away from that one. Loads of birb-shenanigans. Good times. Also, putting 12 wounds onto the Gold Smoke Knight felt good.
NQ: WL; SA; PH – NN: TB; KM; TH – C: W – F: GSK

The next few settlements were a bit confusing to sort out as most of them ran parallel to another. During the first few months of 2024 I introduced 2 friends of mine to the game and we ran a total of 3 settlements during the next 5 months before one of them – after we had lost to the Watcher – came to conclusion we had seen all the game had to offer and we should be moving on. I personally didn’t agree with that sentiment – still don’t – but what are you going to do?
I also do not have any pictures from the fights or set-ups of these 3 settlements, sadly.

First-ish amongst the 3 was a little place called Vertania. I gave my two friends full control whilst holding back any hints or tips unless they really wanted them and we were in for the typical new player experience again. Whilst we just about won against the Butcher Lvl1, we fought the Kingsman special showdown in LY6 and party-wiped to a LY7 Phoenix. This settlement died to super-powered lopes as we lost against a normal Screaming Antelope Lvl2 fight in LY12, who just wouldn’t quit after struggling through heavy losses each year before that. We also got that 1 in 100 roll on intimacy – double 1’s – twice in crucial moments.
NQ: WL; SA; PH – NN: TB; KM; TH – C: W – F: GSK

Next up was a place called Last Haven – the most successful of the 3 settlements. This one made it all the way to the Watcher but got picked apart in a fairly one-sided fight in Lantern Year 25. Biggest difference with this settlement was the addition of the Flower Knight as an additional quarry. This made the settlement surprisingly bow-centric as one player’s characters got their backs and legs broken with startling regularity. If he ever had a character with 5 movement you could bet on something happening to reduce it to at least 4. We also had an acanthus doctor, sadly we could not make use of that ability. And finally, we watched a green savior explode on the very first roll in a fight thanks to brain trauma.
NQ: WL; SA; FK; PH – NN: TB; KM; TH – C: W – F: GSK

Third and final settlement was Vellweb, which we actually started first whilst we were only 2 people playing. This settlement got to Lantern Year 19 and we desperately wanted to fight the Watcher again, but a botched intimacy roll killed off the final two survivors.
Most memorable moment was the Hand fight. My friend wanted to beat up the Hand – not knowing better – and randomly chucked a Founding Stone. Whilst I was silently screaming because I though he had just wasted that, he managed to hit the Hand right in the crotch and followed up with a wound on the same turn, more or less instantly ending the fight.
NQ: WL; SA; PH – NN: TB; KM; TH – C: W – F: GSK

Whilst all that was going on I also began my journey on instagram with my first People of the Stars campaign in Dragon’s Rest. I was looking forward to this for a while at that point and mid-April I finally got going. The Tyrant would be pleased with this litter, I vowed to myself.
This campaign can be found in full on my instagram. I fought a lot of lions and lopes in that campaign as well. But most memorable, besides the constant presence of the Feline Entity, would be me drawing Dark Trader (SE) 7 (!) times over 25 lantern years.
There is also those moments when my first few People of the Stars kept murdering each other. Not ideal. Or when one of my chosen 4 fighters for the finale dies on turn 1 due to a severe leg injury.
In general I just thoroughly enjoyed the slightly different approach to survivors and the goals you have for each of them as you try to assemble the constellations.
NQ: WL; SA; PH – NN: TY; TB – C/F: DK

The next settlement I started was Bogstop – though I waited on that until September so I could include the Frogdog expansion. I trust I don’t need to go too in depth here on my Season 1 settlement for the site, so I will be glossing over this one. We are also not anywhere close to being done. Especially with the Wrath pick-up last Lantern Year.
The tale of the two-dog-settlement where the bog don’t stop.., will continue in 2025.
NQ: FD; SA; PH – NN: TB/KB; SM; BK – C: W – F: GSK

And finally Apollo’s Bastion – a settlement played together with one of my friends that featured a loose mythological theme to it, hence the name, that quickly drifted off towards Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood characters however.
Just.., don’t worry about it.
We had a few beautiful moments like both Zeus and Hera stepping into a Man Trap (BHE15) on two consecutive spaces during the same hunt! Or one of our best characters at the time falling out of the citadel because of 4 Knockback remaining and rolling two 1s in a row on the table.
There is also the sole undisputed – and fully legless – leader of the settlement: Armstrong, who fathered all children in the settlement with the fully blind Demeter for over 20 lantern years. They kept the settlement going despite it suffering 61 deaths on their way to the Gold Smoke Knight. We managed to deal 2 wounds before being completely obliterated. Yes. Despite our inability to successfully kill even a single Lvl3 quarry, we came far enough to unlock a new strain for future games. Yeah!
NQ: FD; SA; PH – NN: TB/KB; SM; BK – C: W – F: GSK

And that’s it.. Those are all the settlements I have ever played. All 8 of them, counting Bogstop. Feels like a decent average of settlement per month to me. I do hope I have as much time to enjoy the game next year as well, especially with the Sunstalker available as well for a People of the Sun campaign at the start of next year. And then there is all the new stuff being released as well, and I haven’t even touched my Dung Beetle Knight, really.

I should add an honorable mentions: the Squire campaign. I do have to admit to falling out of love with that one a bit though. Whilst I still think its a great idea to offer a dash of narrative and immediate playability to the Black Knight, the Mountain Lion just kinda breaks people. That followed up by a Kingsman.. without shields? Followed up by Phoenix? Yeah.., its just a tough sell all around.
I do hope these sort of campaigns make a return at some point in the future, but with a little more fine tuning attached. I guess the Lion is fine if you manage to get a few stellar rolls during the hunt phase (or if you’re Deno) but as it stands… oof.
I will say, I did contemplate setting up the squires today (as of writing this) and didn’t mainly because of time constraints. So, I might come back to them in the future.

But right now I’m more focused on possible regular settlements in 2025. I might be starting a new 2 or 3 player game in January or February, which would be exciting and, of course, we’ll continue Bogstop as well. Did I mention continuing Bogstop? Ideally I’d manage to get that one done before another new infusion of content arrives for the game.
Right now, if I were to make predictions for after Bogstop – I’d probably say I am favoring a People of the Sun campaign (because its new) or another vanilla-ish People of the Lantern – using less additions than with the bog that won’t stop. Or perhaps new stuff altogether?
As expected, its too hard to say at this point.

But that’s all for now, all for this year. I’ll be sitting down to prep some Call of Cthulhu for the upcoming week and to build a few of my Sunstalker armor set minis. Oh, now that I mentioned it.., I also put together my people of the sun minis.

I did not like the arrows on the female model, so I went full anime and gave her the open hand to the side. I also opted for a more rugged head for the male, invoking William Adams to a degree. The katana is one of the rare gear weapons from Core: Muramasa.
Seeing these two makes me want to get Heliocentrism for the Minis. (Edit: Just had another look at them in the BF update… and yup, I want them even more now. That’s what I get for my poor impulse control.)

Edit: I spent some time after writing this post building my Sunstalker armor set minis. So here you go. I do enjoy using the many different head variants on the unarmored sprue.

Anyway, this post is getting too long at this point.

2024 has been another good year for Kingdom Death, seeing the release of both dogs. I do hope this trend continues as we are heading towards the next wave of Inverted Mountain releases.

As always, thank you very much for your time, have a good start to your 2025 adventures and don’t get lost in the darkness,
Amathul