Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 11 Deadism Knowledges

References to:

• Homicidalism

• Romanticism

• Lanternism

Deadism continues to be a bit unusual in how it is designed when we look at the knowledges, many of the other previous low tier knowledges focus around providing thematically designed benefits and while that continues here, there's also a large focus on managing and mitigating the Disembodied hubris. It is not exclusively the goal here, but it is noticeable just how much that this knowledge suite is the “anti-brain trauma' package.

That is not even a negative to be honest, brain trauma is a constant threat in sessions of KDM and having some alternative defence outside of insanity buffers is a welcome element. Also, as we'll see, one of my favourite Fighting Arts gets a revamp/upgrade in this tight package of five knowledges.

Death Poet

• Type: Stat boost, brain trama protection

• Stages: 3

• Observations Required: 2/5/-

• Advancement: Suffer brain trauma

• Lumi Costs: 1/2/3

• Bonuses: +1 strength token when brain trauma suffered (limit once)/+1 strength token when brain trauma suffered/+1 strength token when brain trauma suffered and first time you die in a showdown instead inflict 3 brain damage on all other survivors

• Parallels: None

Our core tenet is a really unusual piece, in that it plays with the neurosis in a very direct manner, because a Deadism survivor doesn't have any insanity, they get hit by brain trauma very easily. Now as mentioned in the previous part (see tag/collection for links); the main trick here is to run with Accept Darkness as your Society principle. I have a personal preference for Collective Toil, but having Deadism as one of my starting philosophies will change that. As always, it is worth practising and perfecting population management/growth in this game because that will let you get to the 15 population for your society as quickly as possible. Thereby giving your Deadism survivors protection against death by brain trauma. Marry that with an early Barber Surgeon and you will rarely lose survivors to brain trauma because you can keep their disorders in check and avoid the 3 disorder death condition that Accept Darkness introduces as the replacement to the normal death.

This is not to say that Accept Darkness is 100% the right choice for a Deadism settlement, other factors do come into play and one can navigate through this with Collective Toil, but the benefits of Accepting are obvious and very helpful for navigating this philosophy, specially if it is paired with Lanternism.

Evermore

• Type: Death Save/Trauma Delivery

• Stages: 2

• Observations Required: 3/-

• Advancement: Inexplicably Survive

• Lumi Costs: 1/2/3

• Bonuses: Undeathable/[A] Suffer a random brain trauma.

• Parallels: Green Charm

A bit of an odd one this; you have a few ways you can pilot this. You can advance it normally; and then make use of the upgraded version to trigger brain trauma for pay-offs elsewhere via other Knowledges. Alternatively you can sit on the first level version and enjoy the undeathable benefit, replacing it with a new knowledge from the forum when you've triggered the Undeathable once or twice. Or you do something with Undeathable, such as building a Green Charm gear grid and aim to advance to Evermore II as quickly and safely as possible by having a second Undeathable roll per death.

Both of these uses are; let us be honest here; not great. Undeathable has always been an ability which you don't want to have in your kit, because there are a bunch of better barriers to put in between yourself and death. (Unless it is the Lion God's Earthquake AI card, because it seems the designers really wanted to make sure that the Lion God is an unpopular and rarely hunted monster). Overall, if you're making a 50% roll to see if you do not die; you probably should ask why you got yourself into that situation in the first place and if better play or a shield would have performed better. Likewise; self inflicting a brain trauma does have some benefits, but there are better ways to be doing this overall.

It is not the situational nature of these two knowledge abilities that is at the crux of the matter however; the main issue we have here is opportunity cost. You have a finite number of Knowledge slots and spending one on something which sometimes works is a high price to pay. Knowledges are not like Fighting Arts where you just accept whatever you've got and do the best with it. Knowledges are a curated and themed experience, with the Forum allowing for delicate navigation of combos and synergy. Therefore each Knowledge needs to be powerful in its own right, supply a lot of value, or be an important member of some combo (either with gear, other knowledges or even other survivors to provide a few examples). Having something which does nothing most of the time, is not a good use of such a slot. That's what Evermore represents; it is a thematic masterpiece, I love the story it tells. But in practicality this knowledge has just failed to perform every time I've tried it out. The Stage 2 version has some benefits, and it is there where you probably want to focus your effort, but getting there requires 3 undeathable successes; which is a base 50% three times. Meaning a survivor has a 12.5% chance of getting through stage 1 rather than dying along the way. About the best way I found of doing this involved taking a disposable Evermore red shirt out and then near the end of the showdown having a Homicidalist squish them; or taking them back to the settlement and jamming them on the stone nose of the Sacrifice innovation. Even then, it was a lot of work for something that failed to pay-off the vast majority of times. Even on a Potentia Est II (Romanticism knowledge that gives +2 knowledge slots) I felt like there were better options for the knowledge slot.

So, if you get this on a survivor, you're probably just best off leaving it there until something better comes along and then replace it. However, all of this is without considering Blackheart, so put a pin in this one, we're coming back to it later.

Dissociation

• Type: Reaction Based Movement

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: N/A

• Advancement: N/A

• Lumi Costs: 2

• Bonuses: When Suffering Brain trauma; place miniature in any unoccupied space within 5 spaces.

• Parallels: Dash (sort of?), Dragon Armor Leap.

Personal medical story time (Skip this paragraph if you want just the game stuff); I've experienced dissociation twice in my life, both due to hypercalcaemia (too much calcium in my diet, caused by yoghurts with added calcium in the second instance). It wasn't until the second time that this occurred, with a very serious attack last year (something I am still not recovered from) that it was correctly identified as such by the emergency room doctor. For myself it was a really awful, horrible experience, where one didn't rightly feel that my automated processes like breathing are working (and in fact if I didn't concentrate on breathing I would just stop doing it). There were other physical symptoms of the hypercalcaemia as well, which is why I am still not recovered. Additional complications abound because those particular yogurts are the only zero-carbs ones on the island, and because carbs/sugar are toxic to my system because of some undiagnosed issue (I suspect SIBO, but my gastro-doctor is an absolute dunce and is willing to do nothing about this apart from throw pain meds at me. As there are no other options on the island and going private is too expensive, I've been stuck slowly deteriorating while being ignored.) All this has meant I've needed to eat those yogurts just once a day and avoid any supplements that have added calcium. Of course the problem of the yogurts has recently been “solved” due to every single supermarket chain on the island stopping carrying them; which is a separate disaster, suffice to say I've been really ill for half the week while writing this (so apologies if it is not up to the normal standard, I've done my best!)

Anyway, that's only just one type of dissociation and it is a purely medical cause; dissociation is an umbrella term for a bunch of different experiences and it can be inflicted through a wide range of different circumstances. What we have here is brain trauma causing a brief moment of “clarity” where the survivor sees their world as what it really is “a board game” (a moment where they get to experience something they share with the Dream Keeper/Gambler's perspective on the world) and get to take a 'move', except that it is a “super move” because they don't even need to worry about other models or terrain blocking their path.

I personally really like the thematic meta-commentary that this knowledge offers; it is a fun little moment and its inclusion in the Gambler's Chest is the perfect spot for it to exist. Mechanically it is also decent, but not something other than a solid workhorse. It's better on survivors who want to be damage dealers over damage sponges, because they prefer to use this to “teleport” somewhere near the blind spot (or a safer place than their current position). Tanks/Sponges on the other hand will generally use this when they are out of position and the monster intimidates all targets; which is a less common occurrence due to the lower frequency of “AoE Intimidates” in the game.

There are also proactive uses for this; such as self inflicting Frenzy through other knowledges/items and using that to provide additional movement in order to get near the monster. Frenzy builds are not that common because many players are shy about disabling portions of their builds, but they are an option and a frenzied survivor can still at least gain weapon proficiency points. It also has a nice little combo with Evermore II on that it allows you to move + move at the cost of an activation + brain trauma. So something else to watch out for.

On the whole this is a solid, and interesting knowledge, but not something that is going to be a high priority pick at the forum most of the time.

Dark Eye

• Type: Perfect Hit range increase and attribute gain

• Stages: 2

• Observations Required: 6/-

• Advancement: Perfect Hit/None

• Lumi Costs: 0/3

• Bonuses: None/+1 Accuracy, +1 Systemic Pressure (SP), +1 to Perfect hit range

• Parallels: Timeless Eye, Backstabber

I love timeless eye; it is one of my favourite fighting arts due to how it makes a bunch of interesting weapons more effective. We're no longer in the world where a Butcher's Blood + 1.3 Counterweighted Axe survivor can kill the Gold Smoke Knight in a single attack (thank goodness);

but there are so many weapons I really enjoy using when they get an extra chance at triggering their Perfect hit abilities.

I will note that I think Dark Eye is overpriced for what it is; costing 3 lumi and +1 SP is a really steep price; especially when you add in how difficult it is to get Timeless Eye onto an Arc Survivor. I don't think that the +1 accuracy is sufficient compensation for the cost we're paying here. However; Perfect hit survivors are typically damage dealers, so the extra accuracy is useful and the +1 Systemic Pressure rarely comes into play. However, I do think that this knowledge should have had a third stage with +2 to Perfect Hit ranges in order to really make it stand out from its Fighting Art cousin.

This is the Deadismn Knowledge that is most generically useful for a settlement and I'm a sucker for Perfect hit builds; and as such I'll use this, but I do think it could do with being a little stronger if it is going to come with that lumi cost and a systemic pressure. Still, to quote the campaign slogan of Elaine Marley from Monkey Island “When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice.” And this is our tier 1 philosophy knowledge that enables Perfect hit builds so choice made.

Blackheart

• Type: Stat Boost, Protective

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: None

• Advancement: None

• Lumi Costs: 3

• Bonuses: +1 strength token on arrival, +x to brain trauma rolls where x is number of strength tokens

• Parallels: Red Fist, Accept Darkness

This is a super, super interesting little Knowledge that has a lot of power baked into it and can also make other knowledges in this suite extra powerful. It, like Lanternism's Ghostzerker before it, is one of the key destinations for this philosophy (We also have Dead Again for Deadism). What this one can do is push your Brain Trauma rolls up to the point that you're generating a 13+ (I'm assuming any result over a 13 will trigger the 13 result here, based on other roll table designs) and getting the “Impossible” result. There is a risk with this, in that if you get a total of 12 then you're at risk of dying if you have 3 disorders, but Death Poet III is a safety blanket for that, especially because of how Death Poet gives additional strength tokens along with allowing you to avoid your first death.

That means outside of a Romanticism survivor (who can have the aforementioned Potentia Est II and get an additional knowledge); we can go Death Poet III + Blackheart and Evermore II (to continuously ramp up our strength token numbers). That's a build which takes a fair bit of time and work to complete (perhaps running the Green Charm + Evermore I on the same survivor to help level up Evermore faster). If we add Potentia Est II (PEII) into the mix then we can even put Dissociation onto the same survivor as PEII is effectively +1 knowledge slot (due to it taking up one slot itself).

That's just a baseline and I need to explore this line of mechanics further in the future, because it only came together in the last few days. But it is super exciting due to “Impossible!” giving +1d10 survival and +2 luck tokens.

Outside of that primordial combo gradually gestating, this Knowledge has synergy with one of the classic Secret Fighting Arts in Red Fist and also with anything else that gives strength tokens such as gear like Seasoned Monster Meat (Dung Beetle Knight); Steadfast Potion (Gormchymist, some risk as it wipes them on knock down) and of course Brawler Armor (Lion Knight hybrid White Lion/Phoenix armor set). It is worth the 3 lumi you pay and is an excellent final destination for Deadism survivors.

Summary

One of the things I've not fully written about in the main article body is the synergy this philosophy has with Lanternism. You do have extra challenges initially due to Deadism survivors tending to drop dead more often than normal survivors vs. Lanternism's desire to keep death count low until it at least unlocks Ghostzerker once, but once done so, Ghostzerker loves the strength tokens that Deadism generates because it can use them to scout more hit locations.

As for Deadism itself, I like this philosophy a lot because of how it represents a difficult journey to navigate alongside an appropriate set of rewards a the end. On top of that it “breaks the mold” for Tier 1 design with its unusual hunt XP structure and push pull between its neurosis and knowledges, where a lot of the knowledge design has a goal of either synergising with or mitigating Disembodied. It honestly feels like Deadism was originally designed by a different person from the other three tier 1 philosophies because of all this alternative design ethos at its heart.

So, I'm always pleased to have Deadism in my suite of early game philosophies, though if the Crimson Crocodile is part of the campaign it is a very awkward thing to navigate. In fact that dynamic between the Croc punishing survivors for having 0 insanity with removal of all defenses plus auto-deaths and Disembodied locking survivors into 0 insanity is probably the only thing I dislike about Deadism. That's because the correct answer is to just not take Deadism survivors against the Croc; a solution that echoes the “don't take noisy gear on hunts” (but not as bad). It's certainly not a dealbreaker, but it is unfortunate that these two items both come in the Gambler's chest and are a part of the People of the Dream Keeper campaign. So that's around a third of the KDM community who are going to experience this interaction in their first campaign.

As we move forward though, this dynamic is going to be something that we are aware of and deliberately make the choice to experience the risk, which I think is absolutely fine – especially if you draw the hunt event that auto-locks a survivor into being Terrified and that lands on a Deadism survivor. In short, Croc vs. Deadism isn't a dealbreaker, it's just not the best choice to have both of them in the same box release.

I love Deadism a huge amount, it is an engaging, known challenge and something I have fun navigating.

When we return to this series we'll take a peak into the world of the Dream Keeper; with Dreamism! However, before then we have some new arrivals to dig through as the Black Knight and Killenium Butcher arrrived yesterday!