A Review of Wanderer - Aeneas White Box | Kingdom Death: Monster

As they fight alongside your settlement, their own story unfolds. Secrets, skills, and more are shared by your visitor. Cultivate a relationship as the wanderer fights along with your survivors to protect your settlement. When they leave, as they all inevitably do, they will leave an indelible mark of their life on your campaign.

Contents:

• 1x Aeneas hard plastic miniature and base

• 1x Divider

• 1x Dual Modes tile

• 1x Aeneas illustrated rulebook

• 3x Knowledge cards

• 2x Secret fighting art cards

• 3x Indomitable resource cards

• 1x Universal trait card

• 1x Rare gear card

• 1x Innovation card

• 1x Fighting art card

Aeneas is one of the great examples of how Kingdom Death despite the setting is a welcoming place for all people. This wanderer has been put together by Team Death in collaboration with PAD Aka Ceri Mathos, who has also provided the pixel art that you see on the back of the Wanderer's booklet. This tells the story of Aeneas, who was born a member of the Moonwolf Tribe and as a young boy suffered cruelty from other members due to being demure and small of limb.

In addition to sporting themes of hunger, this is also the tale of how that small, young boy became the wanderer you see today; a story of struggle about changing from who they were born as to become the person she is inside (if you want another excellent story like this, Sir Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment is an incredible read). Stories like the one in Aeneas's book are important, they can bring comfort to people and help them understand that they are not alone in what's happening to them. That it is OK to be who you are and not hide it away in shame. There is no way to write about this one without considering these matters, and it is important to not only talk about things that make people different from others, but accept them. As the owner of a gay cockatiel, a bisexual cockatiel, an asexual cockatiel and a dog who is somewhere on the scale between male and female I am firmly on the side of letting people live their lives and be who they want to be. Nature is complicated and so are people.

In short, if you have a problem with a woman who was born a boy, Aeneas is not for you and honestly you need to take a long, look at your values.

The Miniature

Unfortunately, due to the obtuse nature of kickstarters, I've not been able to find the original artwork of The Anonymous Survivor that became Aeneas . This means I don't have access to the original gear grid that her equipment is based on. From memory though, in addition to the Belt of Gender Swap, Aeneas also had a Lantern Halberd and Leather Shield. I can't recall the rest of the gear though sadly. If you have links to the original sketch and gear grid, please do share them as it is a delightful part of KDM's history. I do love when tribute to the wider KDM community is given through things like this, Wanderer's in particular are such an excellent way to do this.

One thing to note is that Aeneas comes with two hair options, the first is the braid pictured above and the second has her hair flowing freely down her back. I've chosen to assemble her with the braid as that matches most of the artwork of her in the book, but I was tempted by the loose flowing hair because that is how I remember her from the original art.

I wanted to share the picture of my Aeneas painted up, but I am a glacially slow painter and that has become even slower because I'm alternating painting KDM and Kingdoms Forlorn stuff (Aeneas and The Wandering Swandra are on my painting desk right now with the Nukealope behind them). So keep an eye on my instagram if you want to see the finished piece. I've just this week posted a shot of the three completed Red Witches.

You can compare the miniature to PAD's pixel art above and see how close the miniature is. The sculptor plus whoever lead the art direction have done a cracking job and I've had a delightful time painting her. She's great.

The Gameplay

As a wanderer Aeneas is a temporary member of your settlement, she arrives in lantern year 7 and therefore represents a more developed and potentially powerful option. She also puts pressure on your resources via her hunger/content mechanic which is driven by the “Endless Hunger” Impairment. This gives Aeneas the dual faced tile and alters her statistics depending on which side she is on. A hungry Aeneas gets +1 movement, +1 speed, must depart, loses 1 survival each round she did not attack and generates a monster resource the first time she wounds the monster in the showdown. A content Aneas gets +5 strength, +1 luck, +1 disposition when she returns and +1 weapon proficiency the first time she wounds a monster in the lantern year (on top of normal progression). The way this tile flips is during the aftermath, where Aeneas needs to consume 1d5 resources to flip it to content or keep it on content. When content Aeneas isn't compelled to hunt every lantern year and can be left back home if desired.

Aeneas also has the standard Wanderer ability of Veteran that speeds up her XP gain and the Moonwolf Charm rare gear card. The Moonwolf Charm provides an additional resource during the aftermath (as long as the monster has a resource deck) and in addition to the hungry tile helps mitigate the resource drain Aeneas's contented side can represent. 1d5 resources is a lot of resources, but it's not as bad when you've got 1-2 additional resources being generated by her.

Wanderer – Aeneas is also a bit of an unusual release among wanderers because she comes with three new indomitable resources, one for each of the three core quarries. These resources do not have indomitable patterns and instead have consumption/archival based abilities. The Cat Tongue can be archive to give any melee weapon except for Fist & Tooth sharp until the end of the lantern year, which is a so-so ability but another point of superb world building. What do I mean by that? Well we know that the White Lion used to be a humanoid race that used weapons (including clawed gloves), so the tongues of their devolved descendants not helping natural weapons is a neat bit of mechanical world building. The Prime Beast Stake from the Screaming Antelope works as a wild card cooking resource for any recipe (which is getting better and better now that we're starting to get recipe cards) and ever on theme the Phoenix's Gleaming Gizzard kills you 20% of the time and grants a lifetime reroll 80% of the time. There are of course negatives to these cards, they do not generate indomitable patterns, so when they are added to the pool of Indomitable Resources for a monster they dilute the mechanic and pull it away from what makes it so engaging. You may want to consider only putting these into campaigns that have Aeneas in them in order to alleviate that as we don't have any way to manipulate Indomitable Resource draws (something that is already an issue where paired weapons like Grimmoy's Gusk Knives are concerned).

Aeneas's core philosophy is called consumption, and the neurosis is that if she is Hungry she will consume/archive either a consumable resource or gear from the settlement (even raiding the storage) at the start of the develop step. This is another part of the hunger/content puzzle that you'll have to navigate, if Aeneas is providing consumable resources to support her needs that's not so bad, but if she starts eating things like Monster Grease then there could be a problem. Take proper care of your Aeneas and ensure she has a healthy diet, we don't want to catch her with an empty bag and grease all over her hands and face do we?

Aeneas's tenet is Dubious Fare, which is based around consuming monster resources of increasing node. You are not compelled to consume indomitable resources, but if you do then you get a +3. This knowledge provides a way to quickly get a Shadow Kaiser (Survival Divergent rank) as it allows you to consume a Perfect Organ for the 6+ chance to contract the Millennium Parasite for +10 Hunt XP.

Outside of that specific use case, consumption of these resources has one roll a dice and on low rolls gain temporary buffs, higher rolls generate permanent buffs and with indomitable resources you have a +3 on the roll that can give access to the secret fighting art associated with the monster. There's some really great secret fighting arts to unlock here and that is a big part of what can make Aeneas worth navigating the hunger issues.

The other cards include a secret fighting art that allows a survivor to turn a successful wound attempt into a second attempt at +2 luck. That is a really fun risk/reward mechanic that I enjoy playing around with. The innovation which is gained at the completion of Aeneas's story gives the settlement the ability to consume its weaker survivors for various benefits including unlocking the aforementioned secret fighting art.

Final Thoughts

Aeneas is not as easy and smooth a wanderer to have in your settlement as Candy or the Death Drifter because she asks for a lot of resources to sate her needs, but settlements that can navigate this demand and keep her content will come to appreciate her knowledge and the power she can bring to the table. I think that from a purely mechanical standpoint Aeneas is the third most beneficial wanderer behind Candy and the Drifter, and from a thematic and story perspective this is yet another wanderer I am immensely grateful for owning.

I've not dove much into the story beats of Aeneas's in game tale or the larger KDM world building here but it is all excellent. For example I've not dug through the details surrounding name Aeneas, which was the name of the Trojan Prince Anchises and goddess Aphrodite's son and it sounds like a mumbled version of Anonymous, which relates to Aeneas's original name as The Anonymous Survivor. There's too much to get into in the format these reviews take.

Aeneas and her story is something I am all the richer for having experienced and I look forward to experiencing it again and again in the future. I consider this one a great purchase, especially for players who have the Gambler's Chest and enjoy Arc Survivors.