Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 34 – Gatherism (Patreon)

We're through the GCE Philosophies and Knowledges (with the exception of some final Monster Knowledges, which I'll do after these two) and that means I'll be able to cover some other parts of the GCE and each new Philosophy when they are released. It's a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to my feelings on it all, on one hand it's always nice to have a project “wrap up” but on the other hand I still feel like I've not scratched much beyond the surface when it comes to this incredibly deep topic, the number of interactions and combinations in the game now feels like it's past the point where you can understand everything, I'm still getting surprised by the way that two elements of this game interact in new fashions.

Gatherism is a really wild Philosophy, in some ways it feels like the experience of first playing Midnight Masks in Arkham Horror, in that it throws an interesting new light on what Philosophies can be and creates excitement when you experience the mechanics. That is because while Gatherism is thematically focused on the plant life in the world of Kingdom Death it is mechanically focused on terrain manipulation and support via resources. These are two areas of the game that I've always really liked, but have been traditionally light in scope and depth. Most of the time KDM's showdown board is as wide and empty as the world itself seems to be. One notable loss when we updated to 1.6 was that Screaming Armor was changed from 1.5 to 1.6 and we lost one of the main ways of making terrain that could provide resource based support plays.

That change removed my favourite survivor play style from the game which was the Screaming Lance/Support survivor, providing “healing” via the Screaming Horns and Acanthus and stepping up to trigger the trap with a spear when it was time to reset the deck. It was a tough build to navigate at times because you're not controlling the monster directly and instead deploying your actions towards sustaining through the unpredictable moments, but it felt good to pilot and was very unique.

Gatherism returns some of that to us players, with the added benefit of having synergy with Screaming Armor without depending on it and that's something I very much appreciate. The focus of survivors who adopt this philosophy is around the collecting, propagation and cultivating of plant life. It is thematically related to the Black Harvest from the Dung Beetle Knight (I hope CoD gives us more Black Harvest things and we get a full farming module some time in the future) and links to the Flower Knight's Flower resources as well.

The big mechanical hits here are terrain generation in a showdown, something that Faceism also taps into and the mechanic of bringing new terrain into the settlement Terrain Deck and/or changing existing Terrain into new forms. This is the really exciting part of the whole experience, the first time in a campaign that you have a survivor reach a new rank of Gatherism there is either a change in terrain or addition of new, powerful terrain. This adds so much to the world of Kingdom Death, making it feel even more like a real living (or struggling to survive) world. Playing around with the terrain is something that most expansion monsters do as they tend to add 1+ terrain cards to the deck already, but the way that Gatherism does it manages to feel different in an exciting manner. It makes me hope that we'll get Pillar Cards that modify/swap/increase the Terrain Cards and Terrain Card deployment and new showdown layouts with a denser amount of terrain to fight in and around.

With all that written let us get to the first element we always look at, the Hunt XP progression track and Neurosis.

Our Rank Ups are at 2, 5, 8 and 12, which puts this Philosophy squarely in the middle for development speed when you look at philosophies as a whole but if we are considering Tier 2 philosophies only this is the fastest one by a good margin as the rest are all at a 2/6/10/14 Hunt XP Progression. Breaking that tradition means Gatherism already has a hand up over the competition because it'll hit each rank around 1 or 2 hunts earlier than the other philosophies in Tier 2. It is still slower than the typical Tier 1 and in fact I'm surprised I don't recall seeing this exact split of Rank milestones before, Deadism has Rank 4 at 12 Hunt XP but Rank 3 is in a very different place.

The big thing here is because each rank changes the terrain deck, having your Gatherists rank up faster means they have more lantern years to have an impact on the showdowns. We'll see in the knowledge portion that Invasive also helps with propagating the board even further.

The Neurosis is a fairly soft one overall, forcing a given survivor to investigate over anyone else is in some ways a benefit because you now know who'll be risking it each time. They are forced to Investigate, so sometimes you'll be faced with a table you'd rather not interact with at all, but on the whole providing some certainty about the Hunt Phase is always welcome. We can also try and engineer our Gatherists to have the Explore ability from the Insight Understanding Story Event by setting them to 2 Understanding before departing (Saga gives us newborns with 2 Understanding). This will increase the odds that they reach 3 Understanding during the hunt phase and therefore get that precious +2 to rolling on the Investigate table.

Overall I think this is one of the softest neurosis I've seen so far as it even has potential upsides and further mitigation thanks to Explore. Combine that with the fast Hunt XP ranking and we have a very strong base to this philosophy.

Rank 1 – Roots of the World

The very first Survivor to reach this rank transforms our dear friends the Giant Stone Faces into the Bloody Beard Plants. I'll cover what these new plants do after all the ranks, but the main thing to note here is that this is a very positive change. It doesn't dilute the Terrain Deck at all, and instead just upgrades it. It also means that we now have two improved Giant Stone Faces that we can put onto the board directly via the core Tenet. This means that ranged weapons are a lot stronger when we have Gatherism in our pool of Philosophies because we can ensure our Ranged/Support/Gatherist has a perch to improve their range and accuracy.

We then get the customary +1 Lumi and roll on the table.

1 or 2 causes the archival of all herb and flower resources in the settlement. This is of course a negative (and yet another way our resource stockpiles are targeted by the game), but if we are aware that it is going to happen then we can plan for that by ensuring all required herbs/flowers that can be used up have been done so before we get onto the contents of this book.

For example; because Saga gives us an immediate +2 hunt XP for newborns, meaning they will adopt a philosophy when they arrive in this world. So we can ensure we use up/craft/cook the relevant resources before we roll for intimacies and anything left is stuff we're fine with losing.

In addition, at CC 21+ (Collective Cognition 21 or higher) the survivor who rolls this gains the <K> Florafantasia knowledge, so this roll is not a strict negative.

From 3 to 7 on the table the survivor gains <K> Phytologist and between 1 and 4 Fresh Acanthus depending on how many endeavours you wish to spend (0 to 3). That's pretty good as we'll see Gatherists are able to take some plants out with them on the hunt, something we can support even further if we're playing with the Flower Knight.

Finally on an 8 to 10 our survivor gains the Blood Donor impairment and +1 Luck Token on their next departure. Blood Donor is another interesting negative with upsides, when you depart you gain 2 bleeding tokens and 1 Fresh Acanthus. This means Gatherists can sometimes be part of a self bleed build such as wearing Crimson Armor, but we'll also want to pack Bandages/Bloodskin/First Aid Kit somewhere to help cleanse that bleed once we're at the showdown phase.

Rank 2 – Stem

First survivor to hit Rank 2 adds the Oily Pinkies Flower to the Terrain Deck and the roll gives +1 Lumi with the option to archive up to 3 hide/organ resources to get +1 to the roll for each resource archived. That's here to provide mitigation options for the worst roll on this table, but it also increases the chances of hitting the top results, incredibly desirable results, especially in the years where Acid Rain falls.

The 1 to 4 results is the negative which we have the option to avoid, it's going to make all endeavors at settlement locations (not innovations) cost 1 extra endeavour to use and kill the Gatherist. Survivors ponder and rank up during the Development step, so while they must ponder, we're not forced to do it immediately because we can do other things first. That means we can use any relevant locations before pondering with our Gatherism survivor, that can be helpful because we may be wanting to convert resources via Pottery or the Harvest Ritual (Stone Circle/Screaming Antelope) and similar in order to avoid this result.

In my opinion this part of Rank 2 is one of the larger negatives built into the Philosophy to balance all of its positives, but it is worth it, because at this stage of the settlement's life cycle we should have enough resources and options to allow us to invest into our survivors with resources.

The 5 to 9 result gives the Gatherist +1 accuracy (which ties further into the bow as a weapon of choice) and at CC 24 we also get to give all departing survivors a +1 Accuracy Token each. Gourmandism is the obvious synergy here, but extra accuracy is (almost) always welcome.

On a 10 to 12 we have out Gatherist gain one of the best bonuses in the game, +1 Luck and if we are Pondering to Rank 2 during an Acid Storm then up to another 5 survivors with broken bone injuries can heal those and gain an additional +1 Luck.

This is something we'll generally need to keep an eye on to set up, if one is deep in the Lost Settlement milestones (something I live with every week) then you'll be familiar with the fact that the 4th Milestone for lost settlements guarantees an Acid Storm in Lantern Years 3, 7, 13 and 19. 13 and 19 are the years we're most likely to be able to set this up, so in the situation that you have survivors picking up broken bone injuries you can plan to have a Gatherist hit Rank 2 in the relevant lantern year, spend the maximum amount of organ/hide resources and go for the 10+ result to supercharge a bunch of survivors while you also remove their broken bones. This is incredible if it all lines up, but you do need those broken severe injuries to turn up first and not heal them before the relevant lantern year.

Without those guaranteed Acid Rain years the odds of this occurring are significantly lower, but we can still take advantage of it if we draw Acid Rain when a Gatherist can ponder Rank 2 by not prioritising healing Broken Bones with the Bed Endeavor. That is a lot more chance based though.

Rank 3 – Strange Fruiting

Rank 3 adds the Incensed Pinaceae Fruit terrain card to the terrain deck before giving us the Indecision disorder along with the customary +1 Lumi and d10 roll. This disorder does have some impact because if you are the event revealer of a card and rolling dice during it you'll have to roll twice and choose the worst result. Given our Neurosis forcing us to roll on Investigate tables we may well want to Trepanning this one away before going out on the hunt with our Gatherist.

The 1 to 2 result gifts us +3 Insanity and <K> Florafantasia while the 3 to 8 result gives <K> Hemerochory and at CC 27+ we also gain +1 Accuracy and +1 Understanding. These are both welcome additions, the +1 Understanding normally shouldn't create a Tinker here because we should be pushing towards the max understanding milestone at this time.

The 9 and 10 result gives our Gatherist +1 understanding and if they already have <K> Phytolygist from either the Forum or Rank 1 table they gain +X Permanent Accuracy depending on what level their Phytologist is at. With CC 19+ and records we gain the Dissecting Celurit pattern.

Dissecting Celurit

Crafting Cost: 2x Perfect Bone, 2x Bone, 2x Organ, 2x Iron, 2x Leather

The Celurit (also known as Clurit or Sabit) is a sickle or billhook with a crescent shape to the blade that comes from Indonesia and is also used as a traditional weapon by the Madurese during a carok (duel). This is reflected in its design as being both a tool and a weapon.

This one is a very expensive craft, requiring a lot of high quality generic resources, but what we get in return is a Scythe that has a solid (2/6+/4/Deadly/Sharp) attacking profile and it also gains Devastating 1 if we activate that Puzzle affinity and have inflicted a severe injury on the monster. It's a great weapon to use, compressing that sickle together with a useable weapon, though I prefer to run bows on Gatherists because of their natural synergy with that weapon (more on that in a moment though cause it gets complicated). Scythes are a very good weapon type and this is an excellent mid to late game scythe. Plus it has the bone keyword which is another link back to the Stone Circle's Bone Earrings.

Rank 4 – Verdant Glow

Our last new terrain card is the Mush Lithops Plant, which is my favourite of all the new tiles and I'll get into why that is in the terrain section of this article. We also do our +1 lumi and d10 table roll.

The 1 result gives us +1 movement, +1 accuracy and the Apathetic disorder, we need to remove this disorder via the Barber Surgeon because if we still have it in the following year then the parasite that was inside the fruit our Gatherist just consumed will kill them. The parasite seems to be from the Parasite Queen, which is a fun link back to one of the major players who got a recent release.

The 2 to 8 result gives our Gatherist <K> Botanical Tracker and at CC 32 we're going to lose a limb in exchange for gaining the Illuminated Bow. This is a tricky spot, because Gatherists are really encouraged to lean into bows as their primary weapon type and while we get a bow here, the Gatherist cannot use it as they have lost one of their arms and it is two handed.

If Team Death get their act together in respect to thrown weapons we may well have an alternative path with one handed range options to combo, but for now I tend to use Bows on my Gatherists before I reach CC 32 and then when/if the Gatherist loses a limb I'll try to finish out their Mastery via Nightmare Training and co. If it's not possible then I'll instead go for some Bow proficiency children via Family and let the survivor's children wield their parent's arm in combat. The safer option is to have a different survivor actually use the bow and the Gatherist concentrates on a one handed weapon like the Celurit instead.

Illuminated Bow

This is a phenomenally good weapon with some very interesting properties in respect to its thematic design. Our survivor here has clasped hands with the figure that has been appearing in the narrative sections (I've mostly skipped over this, but I will have more to write about them in the Vivid Grove section). One of the big things is the appearance of the abyssal keyword. This keyword isn't something I can recall seeing before (if there is another gear card with it, please do let me know in the comments, there are too many to go through at this point). That provides more intrigue in respect to what the luminous figure's nature is (if you're wondering about the who, I believe this figure is The Absolute for reasons I'll cover next time, however it is worth noting that this is an "Illuminated" Bow and the Illuminated word along with severed limbs both link towards The Parasite Queen).

It is very interesting that this weapon loses strength each attack and that it is a 1 speed weapon without slow. We're looking to stack as much accuracy and speed as we can on this one because that's how we get the highest amount of value we can manage. We've got a lot of tools available to use (such as the Bloody Beard Plant) in respect to accuracy, but less in respect to extra speed, so keep an eye out for that. 2 to 4 speed is great on a weapon shell like this.

Before we move on, I'd like to just point out that the text here should explain what happens if you already have an Illuminated Bow. My assumption is tough luck, it's unique, lose your arm for no benefit. Taking time to cover that here would be helpful, I do read about players who get hung up on not having clear answers to edge cases and that can cause friction in game sessions.

The 9 to 10 gives our Gatherist 2 permanent green affinities, that's a really good bonus even if they are getting close to the natural end of their hunting career and it's also leading us gently towards running this Philosophy alongside the Flower Knight as the Acanthus Doctor SFA is not only thematically appropriate, but it also benefits from innate Green Affinities.

Finally we've got an additional bonus that reads “You have <K> Phytologist – Gain +1 Permanent Luck”. It is clear that the sentence should read “If you have...” at the start, but again this is something that could be read differently, because if you take it as written it is a command, not an “If then” sentence.

Gatherism Terrain

We have 5 Terrain Cards covering a total of four different types, we've got 1 of each of the new Rank additions along with the two Bloody Beards that replace the two giant stone heads.

These are Giant Stone Faces, except they can be pulled into play by the Gatherists and they add an additional +2 Evasion in addition to the usual +2 Accuracy and +2 Range for ranged weapons. As mentioned above, this leans hard into Bows as being a part of the Gatherism hunt party package, but when/if we get a rounded out suite of Thrown Weapons or more Crossbows we'll have alternative options to run here also. The +2 evasion isn't really that much of a bonus, it's rare that you can get a tank onto this feature and keep the monster next to them, but a Priority “Taunt” tank along with other survivors hiding behind terrain to reduce the odds of them being targeted is a space that might be worth experimenting with more. It has proven to be awkward so far, but easier when combined with Faceism survivors who bring more terrain to the board alongside the Gatherism ones.

The best part of this is how Gatherism's core tenet of Invasive allows us to guarantee the Bloody Beard Plant every showdown if we want, that's a “better” version of Strategist which is a Fighting Art I do miss when playing with Arc Survivors.

Our Rank 2 plant added to the deck is the Oily Pinkies Flower, this is an interesting one where the goal for most survivors is to get yourself knocked into it for the +1 Evasion token, but Gatherism Survivors can stack the odds enough that the might end up forever slick and have that +1 permanent evasion. I find it interesting that we have something we're seeking to get knocked into as the primary way of utilising it if we don't have there are the big bonus to the dice roll and there are enough monsters with knock back as a feature of their move set to lean into this more fully.

Rank 3 brings the Incensed Pinaceae Fruit, lovely Incense Pine cones that provide some additional benefits for standing on them. You're always considered to be in the monster's blind spot (leaning back into that ranged weapon synergy because otherwise you're constantly trying to manoeuvrer the monster so its stands with its butt pointing directly at these fruit) and it also offers us some AI control on the 3 to 10 (80% of the time without modifiers). There's also a +1 accuracy and +monster level insanity once per showdown for the survivor standing on this if they have bonuses to their roll (Screaming Bracers, Gatherist etc.) so it's nice to have a +2 bonus so you can monster control the AI deck most rounds and also have a shot at getting that lovely permanent bonus naturally. If you stack the bonus higher you'll get it more easily, but you'll also get the AI scout and discard less often.

Last of our new terrain cards is my favourite, which is the Mush Lithops Plant and just look at that tile art. It's perfect.

Lithops are a type of succulent “ice plant” or “carpet weed” who are so named because of their unique way of storing water which is via epidermal bladder cells that look like icicles on the surface. The name Lithop comes from the Ancient Greek terms of lithos and ops which literally mean “Stone-Face”. Meaning it was inevitable that the lithops were going to appear at some point in this setting. These plants are split across the middle by a dividing line and they come in a wide range of colours, including some very vivid ones. This is why I love the tile so much, they're brightly coloured faces split down the middle which makes it a perfect representation of what these plants would look like in this world.

The mechanics for the Lithops are like many others useful for non-gatherists but can be incredible for survivors who have big bonuses to their terrain interaction. Most survivors will get +1 survival for each bleed token removed, but those with the big plus modifiers can instead get a permanent +1 movement and that is such a good stat to have (I go back and forth between Luck and Movement as the most important attribute in this game, Luck is definitely overpowered to the point that it distorts the game but movement is so flexible and useful).

Finally it's worth noting that the Screaming God is something of a soft counter to Gatherism because of how all terrain slides towards the stampede, meaning it won't be around for a long time. That means despite how thematically cohesive Faceism + Screaming Antelope + Flower Knight + Screaming God + Gatherism feels, it's not always going to be a cohesive mechanical collection.

Thoughts So Far

Gatherism is such an exciting and refreshing part of the game, while I still wish it had been designed as a Tier 1 philosophy in order to have impact earlier and bolster the somewhat anemic Tier 1 Philosophy club it's hard to be remotely upset when you look at how different this philosophy is from its Tier 2 brethren. Terrain is an area in KDM that's still mostly uncharted territory and while newer showdowns are trying to make more use of it (sometimes) giving the players more tools to bring extra terrain to the board is something I am always excited about because terrain means variation and potential.

There's a lot of interesting stuff packed in here here and though it is a little surprising how much the ranks and terrain lean into supporting a ranged play style when you consider that many Gatherists will end up with just one arm which makes using a bow difficult, but I'm going to take that as a sign we're going to be rewarded soon with a world of thrown axes, knives, darts, slings, shuriken, boomerangs, grenades/bombs, discus, rope darts, javelins, flying claws, bolas and similar.

Until then Gatherists make good teammates for any proficient hunt party, but they're especially good for bow enthusiasts.