It’s just barely still mid-April and we have finally made it to the grand finale for Bogstop. A bumpy ride it was not, carried by the quite powerful tools we could amass due to sheer dumb luck. But I’ll come back to that in an epilogue of sorts next week. For now, we have still one final challenge to face.

In the mean-time, in-between-time, I have since received my Tachyon Nodachi Rubi – and two things: first off – I really like the gear. It’s probably very hard to build due to the high cost (wanting no less than 3 Perfect Bones in addition to 2 Iron, 1 Phoenix Crest, 7 hide and the new indom Neutron Seed) but the effect of the Tachyon Nodachi and the looks are both great. And secondly, the artwork on the back of Rubi’s box specifically is probably one of my favorites so far. I have to say I was a bit let down that the menpo, or face-mask, she is wearing in that depiction is not on the sprue. That made me a little sad. If only I had a King’s Coin or five, I know what I would try and ask in return – which would be completely unreasonable, realistically speaking.

But enough of far-off yet undreamt dreams, lets get to finishing up Bogstop for one final time…

With my first legendary lope felled by the exceptionally powerful Wrath with back-up Bullfrogdog charge, we headed back home, hand(s) full with loot, ready to see what this last Lantern Year had in store for us.

The settlement event was: Stranger in the Dark. A decent event for us to finish on, and we rolled a 7.
Another guy with Zero Presence (SFA) was found just hanging out around town? They must have been quietly multiplying when we weren’t looking! It did also fit frighteningly well into the Slenderman narrative of our settlement as a whole.

As we got down to it, we had 4 endeavors to work with to round out this campaign, and at this stage, I was tunneled onto the Beacon Shield, so I figured we might as well build it. With my mind set on the task, the first endeavor was spent on smelting iron.. and we get a 10. Ooooh. With 6 Broken Lanterns we were able to get 2 iron at once.
We did spend the second endeavor to make leather and thus were able to build the shield.

Furthermore.., well.., uhm.., there didn’t really seem to be too much we could do with most of our loot. Whilst we could build a full leather or Screaming set easily, I didn’t think either was (much) better than what we were currently using, even compared to the Frogdog set. Whilst it eats up actions like a pregnant Frogdog, it has a chance to basically gain infinite armor and allows you to spend said armor to add STR to attacks as well, so…

Looking over the settlement, I suddenly did not really know what to do. Nightmare Training could have been an option for my endeavors – we might get a sword master in these 5-minutes-to-midnight, not that it would help much. Shrine was a given at this stage, I felt like at least. But what else? Synchronic Strike (SFA)? Rhythm Chaser (FA)? Brain surgery?

I rolled on Shrine.., and we gained the 1 departing insanity. Overall not that noteworthy, but at least it would help the Bullfrog set towards keeping Surpass 10 active.

Finally, after a little contemplation, Weed went to the Bell of Challenge and took the vow to be forever Honorable (D) in place of Immortal (D). I’d rather have the survival usage available for him, I figured.

The final Defenders:
Weed (Wrath, Marchioness Armor)
Calys (Oxidized Lantern Glaive, Dragon Armor)
Calystea (Lance of Longinus, Frogdog Armor)
Ghurt (Bullfrog Mace, Bullfrogdog Armor)

Weed had a better stat-line than Ghurt (and Jerryn was unusable due to Aichmophobia D), therefor we were sticking with him for Wrath.
Calys had been reactivated for this final fight during the last Metamorphosis Festival and was chosen to take over the axe of the group.
Calystea, in a way, was the odd one out of the group, as she just happened to be our best remaining survivor overall. The cleaver didn’t cut it against 27TGH though, so without reliable frenzy options (on her at least), she picked up the Lance of Longinus, which with 9STR and the one -1TGH-token it applied on its first wound, she should still be helping out. (Edit: It probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea to build a normal Lantern Glaive for her this last year instead of the Beacon Shield.)
Rounding out the group Ghurt had been picked for the Bullfrog Mace and Set. Whilst his statline should be second best for the weapon (after Calystea) if I wanted to give the whole team a fighting chance to deal wounds to the monster, this was the only way to do it.

This seemed like the best group we were able to put together at this point.., which, admittedly, felt weirdly bad.
It’s just a shame overall that we had 3(!) club masters and not one of them survived to see this moment – despite the great Sir Hermes Bonk being around almost all the way. His protégés only ever had their mastery for a year and a half max, compared to him. But this might have been the luck-tax for getting Wrath.
But back to it.

The Gold Smoke Knight is the final test for our survivors in the base game of Kingdom Death: Monster within the People of the Lantern campaign and one of the strongest monsters the game has to offer so far.
It is looked upon somewhat contentiously as it only ever gets lightly foreshadowed via random hunt events and you can realistically reach this point without ever hearing about this creature, or rather, finding any of the ruined settlements it leaves behind on its ruinous trail.
Have a look at the basic hunt event 73 – Golden Ember if you want an example of its ingame presence in the world. Add to that 2 possible endings that are deemed generally “unsatisfying” by many, the Gold Smoke Knight isn’t exactly looked upon favorably.

Personally, I do tend to try to be positive about a lot of these things (my German DNA roiling against these notions) and with the general approach the game takes to story telling -or its lack thereof – I don’t mind the presentation of this final boss at all.
Whilst I can understand a certain frustration stemming from the random nature of this encounter when you expect actual storytelling, it is precisely this random aspect that can convey a form of horror as well, in my opinion at least. “It will arrive, you might not know how long it will take to get here, but it will find you .. eventually.” (After the Watcher has awakened.) Of course this argument only really applies to you when you are “in the know”.
For now, to learn more about this “Elemental Protector” of the Golden Plains, we will have to wait for more interviews with Adam Poots, the release of the Ivory Dragon expansion or more Holy Lands adjacent content.

Aside the aforementioned, we can gleam from the little information present in the game that the Gold Smoke Knight is hunting Watchers and other intruders that are upsetting the “balance” of these parts of the land, and we, well, we are unfortunate enough to be making use of a not-quite-dead Watcher still.
But I will leave it at that for now.

From a gameplay standpoint the Gold Smoke Knight is a Lvl4 Finale monster with an 18 card deck, no additional tokens and a powerful 27 TGH. It has 4 traits aside the typical Indomitable.
The one most integral to its identity is Blacken. It is a hefty areal attack that deals 5DMG hits to everybody even somewhat close to the knight and knocking them 6 spaces away.
The second trait, Mauler, will trigger Blacken at the end of every monster turn.
Frustration explains a icon on certain monster cards, that adds a 5SPD/2+ACC/5DMG attack to any monster card with the icon that dealt no damage.
Finally, if the survivors have the Thunder Maul rare gear present in the showdown, the survivor carrying the weapon gains the survivor status Second Forge, and with it an opportunity to counter Blacken via a story event in the rule book. Otherwise, as in our case, the card is archived.

There is also an additional rule for the fight, as certain cards deal hits to survivors outside of attack profiles – like Blacken does for instance – these hits can be dodged, blocked, deflected, in general mitigated like any other hit coming from an attack profile.
Hits like these also don’t care about tokens on monsters. It is likely meant to be a simple way around high EVA survivors for the monster. (Edit: As I’ve had to sit through a 3+ hour PotStars Dragon King showdown with a high EVA/low STR survivor that had the Hazmat Shield – yup, I’m farily sure that is the main reason.)

This is my third time fighting the Gold Smoke Knight, and at this point I’m expecting to get brutally dismantled.

18 cards in the deck, the Gold Smoke Knight activated first as per his rules. What an incredible (read: terrible) start – Shattering Blitz – one of the two legendary AI cards in the deck!
And the random survivor getting targeted was probably the worst one of the bunch – its Ghurt in the Bullfrogdog Armor.
4 severes were inflicted and Ghurt took 4 Bleeding tokens in addition to -2MOV and -1SPD/STR/ACC. He could also no longer dodge. (Edit: I will notice this a little later – he was also Frenzied at this point, due to Rageholic D – thus he couldn’t spend any more survival for the rest of the fight either).
Blacken finished the Monster’s turn, dealing additional damage to Ghurt who, after knockback. was too far away to charge back in at 4MOV.

Calys moved towards the monster and attempted an attack. (Edit: this right here was probably one of the bigger misplays during this fight, perhaps likely of the campaign as a whole: Ghurt could have used a +1STR-token in place of survival to dash closer and subsequently charge at the monster had he activated first. Instead:) Calys hit the monster twice and got 2 bad reactions to chose from, she failed the wound at first, but as an axe specialist she was able to turn it around – first blood for the survivors.
The monster rammed into Calys in response.

Calystea moved closer to the fight and pumped her armor up twice, whilst Ghurt limped after them, holding out hope to maybe charge in at some point.
Weed then took it upon himself to go in as well. He managed to hit twice with the horripilation dice. Maul Counter came up, but didin’t trigger as this wasn’t a surge. Triumphantly he dealt a wound!
The second hit did fail and he was blown away from the monster. He ended his turn by surging to deflect.

16 cards remaining, the second card to be played.. was the other legendary! Diaphoresis. Calys had the death dice at this point, so she was the chosen target, lying right at the feet of the Gold Smoke Knight. She was swallowed by the gold-flecked (the cards says its milky red) gas cloud streaming from the monster’s clanging armor, but not before being encouraged and running away to not get hit by Blacken too hard afterwards as well. She did not roll any hit location twice, but she lost all armor at the head and waist.
So she lived… for the moment.
Blacken followed and Calys would have taken a hit to the body but she dodged it as we didn’t have a lot of attack opportunities right now.

Weed’s Frogdoggles revealed the future to him and he ran in for the attack. His sword hit the Knight’s impervious weapon and “knocked it down”.
Calys and Ghurt moved up closer to the monster as Calystea dashed closer as well to activate her Frogdog Armor bonus, she deflated her waist and was knocked towards the monster with +5STR.
Rolling a 9 she did not crit but she did still deal a wound with the Lance of Longinus! A second wound followed as the monster got back up to its feet with its new -1TGH token applied by the weapon.

14 cards remaining, Force Amplified was drawn. The Gold Smoke Knight moved up to Calys, who could quickly surge a 2 block onto the Beacon Shield. As the attack came in she would have to take 2 hits for 8 damage each to her body. She had 8 armor there, so trying to stop the additional attack from Frustration, she decided she’d rather take 1 hit and only block the other.
Blacken followed like clockwork and she used her remaining block to cancel the hit to her head, dodging both of the waist hits as well, thanks to Extra Sense (FA).
Meanwhile Weed was forced to dodge (rather than deflect) the hit coming for him because of Hyper Sensitivity (D). At this point I realized how this disorder – which sounded fairly helpful upon first reading it – in a way counteracted the Marchioness Armor‘s abilities. Whilst it allowed for you to dodge twice per round, you also had to dodge if able to.

Calys starts the survivor turn by jumping at the monster with the Dragon Armor. She hit the Knight twice thanks to the +2ACC, and she scored an easy wound with 35STR vs 26TGH!
And the second hit wounded as well afterwards! Progress was actually being made here!
She surged to block and dashed away to not get knocked down from Traumatized (D).

Calystea could also go in again with her Frogdog Armor bonus, deflating her foot armor she rocketed forward, using Champion’s Rite (FA) on top of that to hit twice and .. she drew the trap. Everybody was suddenly sucked in towards the monster before the mighty hammer came down to attack both Calystea and her mother relentlessly, Calys. Calystea was only hit on 7+, and she still got tagged twice, taking out her armor at her body and arms hit locations.
Calys on the other hand was an easy target, to be hit on 3+, the survivors were not doomed so she could still block and dodge and with all tools available to her, she only took 1 hit to her arms at the end.

This had brought Ghurt close enough to the fight for him to dash and charge the Gold Smoke Knight. But this was the point when I noticed that I had forgotten to Frenzy him – he had Rageholic (D). So much for that plan if he couldn’t spend survival – of course I also forgot about Red Fist (SFA) adding the ability to spend the +1STR-token.
Weed could still go in though. He hit the monster, but the strength he mustered was just not good enough this time to leave a lasting dent.
Against better judgment he surged and managed to squeeze out 1 more hit, luckily that time Wrath did its thing and it crit! Ruining the monster’s armor lifted the survivos’ spirits.. and it removed the -1TGH-token to deal some additional damage on top.
We were in a dangerous spot, so, Weed, at least, dashed away again.

10 cards remaining, Scorching Charge was drawn. The Gold Smoke Knight picked Calys to charge at. She was hit 4 times, of which she was able to dodge the 2 hits to the head at least. This still dealt a severe chest wound – 4 – a gaping chest wound for -1STR.
The monster also charged forward, hitting her again in the chest – which of course was was another severe – 7 – a ruptured spleen for 2 bleed.
Blacken hit her once in the head, giving her a Concussion, triggering Hemophobia (D) to round out the attack. What a great turn all around!

Weed saw another glimpse of the future and dashed towards the monster. His attack missed but he at least knew he did not want to try again just yet.
Ghurt crept up a little closer.
Calystea moved into range and attempted the hit. She got it but failed the wound. With Maul Counter cleared off the top, Weed surged. He hit the monster’s Ancient Fur Cape instead and even crit it as well. The monster staggered and whilst you’d think that were a good thing, it grabbed a hold of Weed to steady itself and he lost a leg to its burning iron grip crushing and melting flesh and bone alike.

9 cards remaining, Savage Grab. Calys was to be the target – again. The monster turned around but did not quite make it all the way over to her. Frustrated it started pummeling her. She was able to dodge 2 more hits, which was only possible thanks to Red Fist (SFA) and her final survival, before she took 1 more hit to the armor of her feet. That left her with 2 more hits to still soak up somehow. A 6 and 7 were rolled for severes, 2 more bleeding tokens .. she bled out after rerolling a 1 as well with her token. The first of our survivors had fallen – but the monster was not ready to stop just yet.
Blacken hit Ghurt and he was sent flying away again.
Weed caught a hold of the Final Lantern as it was flung over the battlefield (which he didn’t need to do – it is during this fight that I re-read the vital keyword).

Battered and bruised, we could do only little this turn.
Calystea backed off, spending a surge and an act to desperately pump her armor up again to usable levels planning to assail the monster in a future round.
Weed and Ghurt both inched closer to the monster, non of them able to dash.

9 cards remaining, Glowing Charge.
The fight was truly getting away from me. The Gold Smoke Knight picked Ghurt as his target of choice.
On 8+ the Knight still managed to hit him 3 times.., sure. And even the 1 armor he gained from the effect of his Mage’s Hood did not save us as the severe waist injury he had to take killed him with the 1 extra bleed. Just like that. the second survivor had fallen.
Blacken hits were dodged, but ultimately both Weed and Calystea were still flung away from the monster.

Calystea deflated her head armor and rocketed back towards the Gold Smoke Knight. Sadly she only hit it once. With a hefty +7STR from the charge, she wounded the knight one more time.
She surged, a little desperate for sure, hitting twice and yet it payed off! She struck the monster’s mask for one more wound!
Weed moves up, but did not get close enough, so he remained in a spot to not have Blacken hit 2 people.

7 cards remaining, Incendiary Charge.
Weed was the target this time. The monster had 1 extra SPD for the attack from moving far enough. 2 hits at 5+, both of which he had to dodge due to his disorder.
Blacken hit him 3 more times, one of which he was able to deflect… finally (!) he could make use of the bonus move and act from the Marchioness set for his next turn.

Calystea went first to not have Weed knock the knight down, due to the impervious hit location on top (we already saw that the round before). She hit twice again. Unsurprisingly she failed both the impervious hit location and the parry that also came up.
After Calystea had been pushed back, Weed had two moves to get to the monster and he attacked the Fuming Mailed Fist, failing the wound.., oh, no.., he was knocked down.
Quickly Calystea encouraged Weed and he attacked again.
He just about hit the monster, and even crit it, but also drew its ire, becoming the priority target for this transgression. Keeping his final +1STR-token around for a dodge, he ended his turn.

6 cards remaining, Incendiary Charge yet again. On 5+ the monster missed all its attacks against Weed! Blacken did hit him significantly though and he had to spend his last STR-token to not take another severe leg injury but aside from that he was “fine” for the moment. *laughs nervously*

Sadly we were unable to get close enough for another attack, so all I could do was try and set up for next round. Both survivors backed off for what it was worth, Weed activated deflect again as Calystea pumped her armor up.

6 cards remaining, Shattering Blitz, probably the worst card we could have gotten. Weed was closest, and the Gold Smoke Knight charged over to him with infinite movement. He missed on the broken rib! Weed was still alive somehow; severely injured, down to 1 natural movement, 3 with his shoes – but alive!
And Blacken for some reason worked out for us as well, as Weed deflected the hit to his chest, his waist merely took a light wound and his arms were mostly undamaged until this point. Leprosy was doing work for him alright!

Weed did reactivate deflect before he used 2 moves to go back in and attack. And he missed on a 1. That’s heart breaking – reality was catching up to us fast – oh no!
Calystea moved just a little closer.

6 cards remaining, Savage Grab, going for Weed again.
The monster tried to grab the lantern, it hits once, which we were forced to deflect. But that was as far as he could take it. Blacken did kill Weed as he had to take 2 more severe injuries to the chest and legs.
He was crushed as the monster brought down the hammer with lethal force.

Only Calystea remaining – the Frogdog set of all things holding out to the very last moments! And she would not give up – she would try her best to hopefully at least dish out a little more hurt against the monster. So that it would at the very least remember them.
She dashed a few steps over and then used her Frogdog Armor bonus again, deflating 4 points of waits armor to hit only once, but she crit the hit location against all odd as it was a parry!
She also surged, but the game said: “no, you’re done” – 2 misses.

5 cards remaining, Force Amplified.
The attack gained 2 extra speed, and on 8+ it still hit her twice. She spent her final survival to dodge 1 of those hits hit and Hollow’s Light let her ignore the severe injury caused from the other hit.
And the Blacken happened.. Utter silence reigned as time slowed to a crawl – 3 hits to the head. She suffered deaf, intracranial hemorrhage and a good ol’ head explosion in short succession to end the fight.

And thus the fight and the settlement both came to a conclusion.

The Gold Smoke Knight brings down the hammer on the Final Lantern and the Watcher body, incinerating anything and everything around. As the Knight lumbers on, only swirling golden embers remain, telling of the valor and fervor we have shown today.

This was the longest Gold Smoke Knight fight I’ve had so far and 13 wounds dealt to the monster is a new personal best for me. If only any of my Club Masters had been around for this fight, we definitely could have done it.
In general, the Bullfrogdog Armor did not get a chance to do anything this fight and it partially boils down to the monster breaking half the bones in Ghurt’s body. Obviously it knew who was going to be the most dangerous for it as the charge, Onslaught and Surpass 10 would have likely been the strongest tools in my arsenal.
(Rageholic (D) and frenzy were the real culprits though – not being able to dash was what made him useless.) And whilst I realized my mistake just a few moments too late – that he could have charged once, it is unlikely that it would have made that much of a difference.)

Weed was still strong even without the obnoxiously powerful crits of Wrath every other attack. And both Calys and Calystea did what they could, contributing nicely overall I would say.

Both Bullfrogdog set and Marchioness were a treat to use over the Lantern Years, though I think I needed the latter a little earlier to get used to it. It did not have that much time to shine. Next Black Knight I will, however, be pushing for Earl or Count most likely.
The star and powerhouse of this settlement is Wrath by a landslide of course. It is just such an incredibly powerful weapon. Bullfrogdog stuff could have probably been more impactful in the endgame, had it not been neutered this hard in the final fight.

One more settlement in the books. Maybe next time I’ll get him.

I will be taking the time to do a little Epilogue for Bogstop in the near future – to go over a few things I noticed and learned whilst playing – you, know, things I can forget again in the future.

For now this will be all from Bogstop.
I’m sure next time I play with the Frogdog I won’t have anywhere near enough copper to build any meaningful gear. Not to mention playing a Black Knight campaign. Portcullis key? Never heard of it. I also don’t see the settlement going all the way.

Before I start season 2 (of which I’m still unsure off what I want to do exactly – PotSun or a true Vanilla+ run look the most interesting for me right now) I do have a few things I would like to do and/or kick off. I would like to give my current opinion on gear – like having a detailed look at the Bone Smith stuff, the Organ Grinder and you etc. I also want to give the Squire campaign another go, maybe keep it trimmed down to only the “important” moments sort of thing to put out a whole campaign in one post. It’ll be real quick as the Mountain Lion is a menace and will likely just kill me.
I also purchased a KD:M sim key not too long ago, so maybe I can get something going on that front as well eventually.
Whatever I come up with in the end – Season 3 will have Pariah and Red Witches and a wanderer… even if it takes a while to get the stuff during late summer, early fall.

But that will be all for now.
As always, thank you very much for your time, may your bog never stop,
Amathul