A Review of Wanderer – Death Drifter White Box | Kingdom Death: Monster

Wanderer Death Drifter arrives with a silent agenda. The settlement may attempt to unlock the mystery of his motivation.

• 1x Death Drifter hard plastic miniature and base

• 5x Arc survivor record sheets

• 1x Divider

• 5x Knowledge cards

• 1x Fighting art card

• 4x Rare gear cards

• 1x Glossary card

• 1x Strain milestone card

Death Drifter is another of the Crossover Wanderers from the Kickstarter, this time it is based on the Drifter from the Heart Machine video game Hyper Light Drifter. For those of you who have not played the game, it is mechanically a Zelda inspired game with a similar viewpoint and some shared mechanics. The titular Drifter is a member of the Blu, a feline-like race which are further explored in the troubled Hyper Light Breaker. Drifters seem to be a kind of collector of artifacts and antiquities though we only see a few of them in the game and I'll refer to the main character as the Drifter due to a lack of any other name.

Spoilers for the game Hyper Light Drifter run from here until you see the bullet pointed chapter titles:

The loose story of Hyper Light Drifter (HLD) has the Drifter guided by a doglike entity that's been nicknamed Anubis due to its resemblance to the Egyptian god. The Drifter's initial opening scenes has it attacked by a second entity called Judgement (again continuing the Egyptian naming convention, because Anubis would judge the dead by weighing their heart against a feather). Judgement inflict the Drifter with a terminal disease and the lead character spends the remainder of the game suffering from its symptoms.

The place where takes HLD place is in a region split into five small realms called the Land of Light, each of which fits to the cardinal position on a compass (plus one in the centre) and features a particular race. These races battled against four titans in the past, these titans were constructed by an ancient race of Librarians and were later reanimated by Judgement for war against what is suspected to be the Blu race – each titan was slain in battle and their remains can be seen in the regions, and so we're dealing with a post-post-apocalyptic place.

To the north is the Divine Path, a mountainous region home to the Bird People a tribe of humanoid vultures that have fallen to becoming religious fanatics with only one member holding onto who they were before. To the west is the Midnight Woods/Crystal Forest, a place populated by the Tanuki, raccoon-like humanoids. This region is blighted with Hard Light Crystals (the same material the Drifter's sword is made from) and this plague on the land was a result of the battle with the titan. Some Tanuki have even been trapped in the green crystals ever since and that may be why they are so hostile to the Drifter.

The eastern realm is a place of lakes and is therefore known as the Eastern Watershelf, it was originally populated by a race of Otter-like humanoids, but Toads have taken over by doing a colonialism and now treat the otters as food and clothing. There's no guilt when it comes to the Toads, they're absolutely not victims in any shape or form unlike the way the Tanuki possibly are. The southern realm is the Wastes and in addition to some Lizard-folk living here it also contains a vast complex that the Lizards accidentally disturbed. The complex came to life and has released a bunch of cybernetic life onto the land.

Finally we have the Central Town, surrounded by Dregs from the industrial complex on all sides and acting as the hub area for the game, this is a town built on top of a ruined city and represents one of the most civilised and hopeful places in the lands. It is also built upon a deep complex where the Immortal Cell and Judgement lurk. Ultimately the goal is for the Drifter to complete each zone, unlocking access to the Abyss in order to reach the Immortal Cell and break its hold over the Land of Light, a journey that due to Judgement's curse may prove to be the final task for the Drifter.

Spoilers End

Hyper Light Drifter's storytelling is mostly done via the game, but it does have a language which has been translated due to it being a simple substitution cipher. This language also appears in the Death Drifter book age ranks with the title of each section translating to the following:

• Introduction

• Vesturing

• Reliceary

• Transcent

• Departure

The Miniature

The Death Drifter miniature is without a doubt one of the best Wanderers we've seen where execution is concerned. To demonstrate why I write that, here are two images of the Drifter from the original setting.

The Death Drifter version not only honours the original design of the Drifter closely, but it also brings it into the Kingdom Death universe by having the Drifter clad in Phoenix Armor and wielding a “Hard Light” Twilight Sword and having Throwing Knives instead of the various guns that the Drifter wields in HLD.

The review here is quite simply a case of “no notes, just praise” as far as I'm concerned, both the original game and Kingdom Death's aesthetics have been preserved and married together in a satisfying pairing. From sculpted base to pointed helmet this one is perfect.

The Gameplay

Again like all Wanderers the Drifter is an Arc Survivor, which means that if you do not own the Gambler's Chest, the game elements here are of somewhat reduced value due to how much less useful a fighting art is compared to a knowledge card. While you can play with the Death Drifter outside of Arc Survivor games, I did not find the experience as rich or engaging. This is especially heightened with the Drifter due to the way that the knowledge system works. A single fighting art cannot copy what is happening here (also outside of Arc survivors max understanding does nothing for the Drifter, which is an oversight that could have been corrected very easily but it was not, this is an ongoing problem caused by KDM being now split into two rather similar games with different levelling systems).

Death Drifter's Wanderer booklet is another wonderful homage to the wordless game it is inspired by. Outside of necessary rules text each of the five pages that showcase the introduction and ranking up of this character are “silent”. This unfolds the Drifter's story through mechanics and images, providing a stripped down 'show don't tell' narrative experience. I have massively enjoyed the stories of every Wanderer that have been released to date, and the alternative way that this one is told has put it right up in my favourite KDM stories along with the Killenium Butcher, Aeneas and of course Candy.

The main mechanical theme of the Drifter is Dashing. Dashing is at the heart of almost everything the Drifter does, having an innate starting additional Dash per round, but all other survival actions are disabled in exchange for this. The Drifter also has alternative Understanding and Courage progression milestones, with statistic gains, a spin attack (which isn't very good due to asking for 6 survival to activate it) and an additional knowledge slot being the options (there is no additional Fighting Art slot for non-Arc Death Drifters, which makes max understanding less valuable).

This Dash theming continues throughout the entire expansion, the base tenet knowledge of Chain Dash upgrades into one that gives additional dashes and also offers three observations that are unlocked by returning from showdowns. These are shared with the settlement, and also at rank 3 the Death Drifter gains a bunch of observations in order to allow unlocking of all the other observation knowledges. This is necessitated by the Veteran ability which speeds up hunt XP gains for Wanderers, allowing their stories to be told in a rapid fashion without eating up too much real estate for the normal survivors. (Quick aside here, if you wanted to adapt my 5-6 Player alternative rules to have the 5th player be a series of different Wanderers it works really well, with enough Wanderers you could even have the 6th Player also be them).

The additional Knowledges that are unlocked as observations are all also focused around dashing, with them offering deflect tokens, extra movement, the ability to dash through the monster and possibly wound it and automatic hits with a melee weapon that can translate into additional wounds and knockback. There's a lot of fun mobility orientated options here that all homage the video game it comes from while also offering really exciting and sweet ways to keep survivors mobile and make Dash even stronger. Most of the Wanderer Philosophies don't have a huge amount of impact as they only add one knowledge, getting four here that all synergise with each other and utilise the strongest Survival Action (which in my opinion is Dash) makes this set really engaging and powerful to play with.

There is also included in this box a Milestone card that unlocks if the Death Drifter somehow manages to Dash 8+ times in a single round. Each additional dash requires a 5+ (60%) to trigger, so even with a base of two Dashes per round to work from this takes a bit, especially because of the survival limit. However we again have potential tools here, with the Death Drifter cloak rare gear giving us one automatic lantern 10 for a roll and any 10+ triggering not just an additional dash, but that dash costs no survival. When this milestone is completed, the Death Drifter Cloak becomes the Violet Drifter Cloak (serving as both a reference to the Phoenix and Hyper Light Drifter itself as that game features violet as a key part of its art aesthetic).

The Drifter's weapons are also really interesting when they are unlocked by ranking up, I'll deep dive them at some point in the future, but the way that they work together. The Twilight Knives use the Load ability:

Load

A gear special rule. This gear must be loaded before it can be used. Spend [Activation] to place a prep token on this gear if it does not already have one. Survivors must spend both an activation and a prep token on this gear to attack with it.

Which normally makes for a slow weapon, but the Severing Twilight weapon will place load tokens on the knives allowing for them to be more easily used, this matters because the Drifter cannot surge to allow for a load + attack in a single round.

Final Thoughts

The Death Drifter is another deeply thoughtful and interesting Wanderer that offers so many different additions both to the game's mechanics and lore while also paying tribute to the original character. I've barely scratched the surface of all the neat tools that come in this box, such as the Severing Twilight weapon being a lantern keyword gear, because it's made out of Hard/Phase Light so of course it gives off light. This is one of the really, really good releases and I think it is pretty much an essential purchase for anyone who already has the Gambler's Chest and can therefore dive into the deep pool that this Wanderer offers for a settlement. I have a sentimental and heartfelt love for everything that Candy and Aeneas are also doing, and the Death Drifter sits up with them in the top three Wanderer slots for my own tastes.

I can highly recommend this one.

Wanderer – Death Drifter can be purchased at: https://shop.kingdomdeath.com/collections/expansions/products/wanderer-death-drifter