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Revisiting Constructing a Kingdom Death: Monster Campaign: Part 1 Quarries
🕑 Added 2023-04-14 07:04:33 +0000 UTC
It's been a while since I went through all of the steps that involve constructing a satisfying and engaging campaign in Monster and with the possibility of the Gambler's Chest Expansion (GCE) maybe arriving this year and the sheer volume of additional mini-expansions released through the store it seems that this year is the best time to be doing so. It will also provide a great point for me to compare what we've had so far against the GCE when it arrives; as one expects an elevation in the quality of the GCE's content over the core box and its expansions.
I'm going to walk through each piece of content with the following considerations:
- How “essential” it is. Outside of the core game no content is 100% essential, but there are some expansions that fix issues or plug gaps in the core game's experience and they are as close to staples as possible. The essential nature of expansions and promo content also varies depending on which of the three current campaigns you are playing; all expansions work well in People of the Lantern as that's the default bog standard game, but if there are expansions that are better or worse in Stars or Sun I will note that and explain why.
- What synergies it has; expansions provide additional content through gear and combining gear from different monsters is a joyful experience that can reward unexpected results. I am not going to spell out all the possible synergies in detail with this, but I will make note of any really interesting links with hints as to what they are. Quick note here, sometimes the synergies are not reciprocated; that's because I'm looking at which expansion primarily benefits from the synergies and sometimes that's not equal. I also will not be listing promotional synergies in the expansions, they will be contained in the promotional entries unless there is a very strong synergy (like Flower Knight's True Blade + Vagabond Armor).
- How it impacts on the difficulty of the campaign; monsters vary in difficulty by design; some of them can be added to make a campaign easier, others make it harder. Nemesis monsters are by design more impactful than quarry monsters; just because a quarry monster is in a campaign doesn't mean you have to hunt it.
I am also, for the purposes of this list review, going to consider every single core game Quarry and non-campaign specific Nemesis as their own “expansion”. This allows me to review what they bring to each particular campaign; this is of particular import during People of the Stars, because that campaign eschews the norm of 'survivors are disposable' by adding on the caveat of 'except for constellation survivors who are vital'. It also takes into consideration the fact that outside of the prologue White Lion fight almost every monster isn't used in one campaign or the other; either due to being replaced, not present or purely optional. We'll get to that in more details with the individual entries.
I will also walk through all of the promotional/small box content; either in bundles if they share mechanics or separately. Though I will note that if the content is tied to a specific campaign I'm not going to go into details of it here. For example the hard plastic release of the Sun Lion Armor is People of the Sun only – so if you're playing People of the Sun you should include it by default. I'm also not going to go into details of the Green Knight armor here; that's a preset nemesis/quarry package which you have to fully include if you want to use it. The only exception is the Green Helm, which uses Dung Beetle Knight (DBK) contents only; that means you can slip that Helm into any campaign where the DBK is present if you want. Go on, treat yourself, it makes your survivor look like a unicorn.
Quarry Monsters
When it comes to how many quarry monsters you want to include in your campaign, one should always bare in mind that there is no such thing as too many quarry monsters in the timeline. They are always optional, you do not have to hunt one at all if you don't want to. That written, after a lot of testing I've found that five or six is the actual optimal number to have in your pool; this means you have 2 to 3 early game options that you can rotate through, and another 2 to 3 mid to late game options you can pick from in addition to the higher level versions of the early game monsters. That provides enough variety to keep things interesting when you want to switch it up without feeling overwhelmed from too many choices. It is worth noting that both the Lion God and Dung Beetle Knight offer solid options for a 'we'll hunt this once only' quarries as there are phenomenal unlocks behind the first fight you have against them.
A couple of additional notes here; always remember that quarry content is OPTIONAL if you think something is too powerful, you do not have to craft it or even use it. KDM is your game, it is your world, play it how you want to. This game doesn't belong to me, it doesn't belong to the fun police, it belong to APG and it doesn't belong to Adam. It's your game, you bought it, you're the one playing it; so tailor your experience to how you like it. There's no awards for playing it 'purist' just like there's no penalty for playing a settlement entirely themed around clowns and only crafting gear that has a circus theme.
Have it your way.
White Lion
Campaign Essentiality: Almost Vital
Expansion Synergies: Slender Man, Lion Knight, Gorm, Screaming Antelope, Lion God (low), Butcher
Expansion Clashes: Spidicules
Difficulty Modifier: Reduces Difficulty
As Kingdom Death's training wheels monster; the White Lion is currently present in all campaigns due to the design of the prologue fight. We will see this change in the future, but for now the monster remains vital as you will always have to fight it at least once. However; its suite of early game weapons and the Cat Eye Circlet mean that this monster provides so many key tools to players that the only campaigns that currently can function without it are ones which choose to instead hunt the Gorm early on.
The White Lion not only provides premium early game weapons and probably the best support item in the entire game; it is also a very predictable and (relatively) low risk monster that has a higher than normal amount of hide resource drops. This makes it the optimal choice early on for constructing both Rawhide and Leather Armor sets; in essence the White Lion's specific armor sets are not the White Lion Armor (which remains an underpowered niche option for hipsters) but are in truth Rawhide and Leather Armor.
Of course farming this monster can provide a lot of power for an early settlement and as such it certainly makes the campaign's beginning stages easier and smoother when compared to settlements that chose to instead focus on one of the other three current early game monsters.
Its most obvious synergies are with the Slender Man and Lion Knight; both of whom have gear that requires White Lion resources to be crafted; but it also has close synergies with the Gorm due to interactions between the two monsters gear and a natural synergy with the Screaming Antelope as it provides the first spear you can pair with that monsters armor. It has few synergies with later game monsters mostly because the White Lion falls off in relevance fairly quickly due to its Level 3 specific weapon being very underpowered and the White Lion Armor lacking sufficient Armor Points to make it viable against the Node 3 monsters (Phoenix, DBK, Dragon King & Sunstalker) without heavy support.
I'll discuss the Spidicules Expansion Clash in its entry further down.
White Gigalion
Campaign Essentiality: Effectively “replaces” the L2+ White Lion (see notes)
Expansion Synergies: Same as the White Lion – but additional synergies with the Antelope
Expansion Clashes: Same as the White Lion
Difficulty Modifier: Adds some difficulty to hunts, but increases gear power a lot. Therefore a wash.
I do not consider this expansion to be a vital one to own; but if you do own it you should absolutely include it in every single campaign as the direct replacement for the higher level White Lions due to it having relevant gear and an increased challenge. It is one of a few expansions that I consider to be a flat out upgrade over the core game option (Slender Man over King's Man is the main other) and it is therefore an overall benefit for a campaign while also having a low opportunity cost to include because it doesn't remove the original White Lion; it just provides an alternative.
Gorm
Campaign Essentiality: Almost an automatic inclusion
Expansion Synergies: White Lion, Screaming Antelope, Spidicules, Sunstalker, Dragon King, Phoenix, Flower Knight, Dung Beetle Knight, Vagabond Armor
Expansion Clashes: None
Difficulty Modifier: Dangerous to Hunt Early, but makes the campaign overall easier.
The Gorm is probably the most useful and interesting of all the current early game monsters; while it has similar issues to the other early game monsters in that its armor set is overpriced for how long it takes to craft, how much it costs and the amount of armor points you get from it. It must always be acknowledged that the Gorment Mask remains one of the best head armor options in the game due to how it can provide effective immunity to Intimidation actions from monsters.
The main benefits the Gorm brings to a campaign are in its weapons and support items. It is the earliest place where one can get a shield; it has the best early game axe, club, grand weapon, instrument (at least until it gets stupidly changed to get noisy) and lantern. The weaponry it provides are strong enough to field against Level 1 Node 3 monsters; which is exactly what you want them to be able to achieve.
As a balance to this, the Gorm provides the consistent challenge of Gorm Climate and has a showdown which is more challenging and dangerous than the White Lion. It's capable of pulling out some surprising and deadly attacks that are close to lethal for early game survivors (Flatten is a great example); and its retch mechanics take a little getting used to when you first encounter them.
Screaming Antelope
Campaign Essentiality: Non-Essential
Expansion Synergies: Sunstalker, Phoenix, Flower Knight, Slender Man, Lion Knight
Expansion Clashes: Spidicules, Gorm (mild)
Difficulty Modifier: Reduces Difficulty
KDM's troubled third child has had a rough ride and is the monster which has experienced the highest amount of changes. It has fallen from being an essential piece of the game to one that can be frankly ignored if you want. It does still have some relevant options; with Blood Paint remaining one of the best offensive tools in the entire game and the armor still performing some niche options but on the whole this monster is one you would hunt mostly for the Acanthus, resource drops and unlocking the Harvest Ritual on its settlement location. It is also an essential part of the Slender Man and Lion Knight resource requirements; which keep it relevant in campaigns that include those monsters and/or the Hybrid Armors.
It has some fun synergies; the most notable of which outside of Spears is with the Flower Knight's satchel, as that allows for a doctor playstyle because it is currently the only way to guarantee Acanthus in a showdown where it can be mechanically useful for healing. However, this is at best an edge case because the Satchel can hold a maximum of one resource (and it is heavy).
Still; a lot of what keeps the Antelope relevant isn't intrinsic to this monster however; it's due to the problems and issues that surround its replacement quarry monster the...
Spidicules
Campaign Essentiality: Non-Essential
Expansion Synergies: Gorm, Slender Man, Sunstalker, Dragon King, Phoenix,
Expansion Clashes: Screaming Antelope, White Lion
Difficulty Modifier: Increases Difficulty
As the owner of the largest suite of problematic mechanical designs in the current game options; Spidicules is a challenging piece of content to include in your campaign. Not only does it remove the Screaming Antelope entirely, thereby denying easy access to Acanthus and no chance of getting Blood Paint (though interestingly the expansion can provide a Bladder resource, just no way to craft with it); but it also has a difficult to craft armor set that is relatively weak for how late in the campaign you can craft.
If that wasn't enough; many of its early game weapons are just straight alternatives for White Lion weapons. The Amber Poleaxe is more versatile than the King's Spear; but it costs so much more in resources that it is hard to justify if you are not abusing its ability. The Hooded Scrap Katar on the other hand is just not something worth investigating if you have access to the Lion Beast Katar – so it remains uncrafted except when players are deliberately avoiding hunting the White Lion.
It does however provide a nice early game switch up if you hunt both it and the Gorm instead of the traditional duo; and the rings are a fair challenge to craft that remains engaging. This decision also makes the Amber Poleaxe and Hooded Scrap Katar viable early game weapons. It also has the default best early to mid game whip in the Silk Whip, a weapon that greatly appreciates the “monster movement” armor sets to keep it relevant until the Ring Whip can be crafted.
There is a lot of potential in this expansion still; and the problems are all exclusively stuff that can be fixed in Campaigns of Death for sure. It needs work on the armor set progression; balancing of some potentially abusive gear (Body Suit, Green & Red Rings Rings) and the timeline events need a overhaul. The key area for development is removing the clashes and increasing synergies with the White Lion's gear suite. Personally I think the Poleaxe should have the spear keyword removed for a start.
This overhaul is something I hope does happen in Campaigns of Death, because the Spidicules Showdown is close to perfection, providing a large amount of challenge and difficulty along with a unique minion based experience that can only be found elsewhere in the Sunstalker.
Flower Knight
Campaign Essentiality: Low/Green Armor
Expansion Synergies: Screaming Antelope, Sunstalker, Spidicules, Dung Beetle Knight, Lion Knight, Tactics, Vagabond Armor
Expansion Clashes: None
Difficulty Modifier: Reduces difficulty significantly
The Flower Knight is notorious for making campaigns easier*; and while the greatest offender has been neutered down to a reasonable level, there are still a whole host of things which can be utilised to help power up your survivors and settlement in a range of differing manners including, but not limited to the excellent Flower Knight badge.. The resources from the Flower Knight are perishable; which means they will be lost at the end of the settlement phase if not crafted, however in exchange for that they can be turned into powerful fighting arts like Otherworldly Luck (a premium quality of life fighting art that helps a lot on hunts and in the settlement phase); or even new survivors. One of the neater synergies is with the Screaming Antelope; where excess flowers can be converted into basic resources via the Harvest Ritual. Something which has become stronger since 1.6 brought Perfect basic resources. And of course; there is always the absolute workhorse pair of Secret Fighting Arts with Acanthus Doctor and True Blade.
While there is certainly less need for the Flower Knight the more adept you become at handling the requirements that the campaign puts on you it is often nice to have this expansion in your back pocket because of how effective it can be at giving you a way to pivot out of trouble.
*The Level 3 Flower Knight is the exception to this and you have to fight that to get True Blade; but it is still weaker than many of the other early game Node 1 level 3 monster variants.
Phoenix
Campaign Essentiality:Very Low
Expansion Synergies:Slender Man, Lion Knight, Dragon King, Screaming Antelope, Phoenix, Gorm
Campaign Clashes: People of the Stars
Difficulty Modifier:Increases Difficulty
Outside of the Lion God, the Phoenix remains the quarry I hunt the absolute least. This is due mostly to the way it interacts with the age of survivors in an unsatisfying and frustrating manner that doesn't have any reasonable mitigation outside of using either disposable survivors (with hunt XP) or outright hard countering its aging mechanics. I am so disengaged with the time based mechanics that the Phoenix provides that I hunt this monster exclusively with ageless survivors these days (and Deja Vu appearing with the L1 Phoenix can get lost). That written; there have been a lot of strides taken in 1.6 to improve the gear options this monster offers; most notable of which is the upgraded Sonic Tomahawk.
The armor set still has powerful pieces and the armor set bonus is excellent when paired with powerful early game weapons or melee weapons with reach. But the overall issue is how unpleasant and frustrating the Phoenix's aging mechanics are; if the L1 Phoenix didn't sometimes have deja vu, age survivors up (and the hunt didn't delete survivors who had too low an amount of experience) then we'd probably be in a different place when discussing this monster. Sadly it was decided that the Phoenix would have access to all of its weakest mechanical devices at all levels; so this is often the monster I skip out on in favour of the other three. I am still very fond of Phoenix Armor, but it is a flavour and mechanical fail that the armor from the “rainbow monster” has so few affinities, it makes it hard to innovate builds with.
Special note to how dramatically the Phoenix harms People of the Stars; because that campaign requires you to gain elements of star bingo in order to unlock a constellation on survivors you need as much time as possible with each survivor. Having them aged up, or possibly erased from existence is such an anathema to the ethos of Stars that I hard recommend you avoid hunting in Stars it unless you have ageless survivors available. The better alternative is...
Sunstalker
Campaign Essentiality: High
Expansion Synergies: Dragon King, Phoenix, Spidicules, Slender Man, Gorm, White Lion, Screaming Antelope, heck there's nothing this monster doesn't synergies with.
Expansion Clashes: None
Campaign Synergies: People of the Stars
Campaign Clashes: People of the Sun for narrative and mechanical reasons
Difficulty Modifier: Overall Neutral, makes the campaign easier if you intend to only hunt it at L1
The Sunstalker does for the mid to late game what the Gorm does for the Early to Mid game. It provides a wealth of gear options that have all sorts of neat synergies with other monster gear. It also gives you a 'training wheels' version of itself with the L1 Sunstalker before taking the gloves off in the L2+ versions.
Of great note is the Cycloid Scale Armor which is the default choice for making early game weapons scale into the late game by giving them sharp while also providing an excellent platform to test out odd puzzle affinity based combos, but in truth there is not a single bad piece of gear in the entire Sunstalker selection and you will almost always find something that interests you or does something in a surprising manner. It has very notable synergies with the...
Dragon King
Campaign Essentiality:High, Very High for People of the Sun
Expansion Synergies:Sunstalker, Gorm, Phoenix
Expansion Clashes: None
Campaign Clash: People of the Stars for mechanical and thematic reasons
Campaign Synergies: People of the Sun
Difficulty Modifier: Overall neutral, reduces difficulty if you are a mono-Archer Andy
Without exception every single one of the Dragon King's weapons have too low a base strength; this is a big part of why it synergises with the Sunstalker and Phoenix expansions. This is because these two monsters also have armor that helps increase the weapons base strength to reasonable levels for fighting mid and late game monsters.
The Sunstalker in particular enjoys an absolutely massive amount of cross synergies with the Dragon King; with each monster's gear complementing the others in a wide and surprising number of ways. I am not going to list them off here; as that would be spoiling all of the surprises.
Dragon Armor is also one of my all time favourite armor sets due to it being a solid armor set with a couple of really good abilities, an excellent set bonus and the highest amount of armor points without being flammable and heavy. All of which makes it great for People of the Sun, and ideal for slapping Sunstalker ovipositors around while you're killing the Sunctopus for bits. Sunctopus is a great word, it's mine, don't use it because when I return to custom content after the GCE has finally landed I'm going to create it.
Special shout out to the Shielded Quiver; when you've got 3+ arrows in your gear grid because your a crystal archer, this does a great job of 'doubling' those slots. It just sadly cannot combo with the Quiver & Sun String from the Sunstalker.
Dung Beetle Knight
Campaign Essentiality: Medium
Expansion Synergies: Flower Knight, Lion Knight, Slender Man, Tactics! Green Armor
Expansion Clashes: None
Campaign Synergy: People of the Sun (thanks to a rules technicality, this may change)
Difficulty Modifier: Lowers Difficulty due to power of the gear, but the showdown is very challenging for new players even at the first level.
A perennial contender in the top three expansion monsters (along with the Gorm and Sunstalker); the Dung Beetle Knight offers a wide range of useful and powerful gear options along with the entire Black Harvest cycle of benefits. One of the most common tricks employed when 'splashing' the DBK into the game is to use the shoulder plates and DBK Knight Errant Badge with softer armor like Rawhide to provide a temporary stop gap boost of armor points.
The Sunstalker and Gorm remain my favourite two expansions, but if you said the DBK was your top choice to add to any campaigns you are playing I would not correct you; it's a fine option.
Lion God
Campaign Essentiality: None
Expansion Synergies: White Lion, Butcher
Expansion Clashes: None
Difficulty Modifier: Very High if you hunt it. Capable of One Hit KOs that are extremely challenging to avoid.
At the moment the Lion God is in a pretty rough position as it is a monster with a very high challenge level but a distinct lack of desirable rewards outside of the Circlet given for beating the L1. Most campaigns where this monster is tackled will either be seeking to beat it at L1 and then ignore it for the rest of the campaign or they are run by experienced players that have hardened survivors and deep tactics. I really do not have much more to say about this one, it's a monster that needs a deep reconstruction from the foundations; which is what the Silver City is probably aiming to do.
Lonely Tree
Campaign Essentiality: Auto Include
Expansion Synergies: Limited, but the various bits of fruit do have some interactions I'm not going to spoil here.
Expansion Clashes: None, though be cautious about who eats the fruit.
Difficulty Modifier: Moderately challenging in a fair manner.
I wouldn't recommend buying this expansion for full price until we see what has happened with it in Campaigns of Death; but I do think that it is a reasonable purchase at Black Friday prices and once you do have it you should include it in every campaign you play. It is a low opportunity cost monster to include because it may not always turn up and even if you get the ability to encounter it, you effectively decide when you trigger that encounter by consuming the frut. So it's easy to fit in and has no additional bloat on the campaign's length except if you choose for that to occur.
I really tried to fit all of the monsters into a single article; but there is SO MUCH content that I just can't manage it; so this is likely going to be a three parter. I apologise for that; but even though content has only been dripped out in a small dribble over the years; when you look back at the 2,330 days (6 years and 4 months) since the kickstarter launched it does certainly accumulate when added on top of the first kickstarter's content. I will do my best to keep it to two parts; but honestly it's so difficult! I'll also provide some example campaign mixes I like to use as 'default options' near the end of this series.
Regardless, when all the parts are written I will also post a full 'stitched' together version of this article for ease of linking. That will be an additional release on top of the content for that week. There will also be a piece on Aeon Trespass's Labyrinthauros somewhere squeezed in this month, I've got some juicy details to eventually share about that particular creature as I got to chat with Marcin about its background lore.
Comments
a warm, awful feeling
this is incredibly timely and useful for me, thank you Fen! looking forward to the future part(s)!
Gyorgy Boda
Pretty great article. My flame for KDM got extinguished few years ago, but I can imagine that when the new stuff comes, I will rekindle it. I also have to admit that even with 2 campaigns under the belt, and few unfinished one most of the time I had no idea about the synergies you mentioned :). It is pretty amazing how you unfolded the design concepts behind certain monster, my favourite was when you pointed out the weaknesses of the phoenix monster (that is, actually, not an expansion, as mentioned in one place, it is part of the core). In the monsters section you refer to a expansion clashes. I understand how huge undertaking such an article, but I would have read a bit more about how and why those expansions DON'T synergize with something else. I also think this is something that campaigns of death book will address, but most likely they just state the monster combinations preferred and they will not disclose the reasoning behind.
