Kingdom Death: Monster

The core product supports up to four cooperating players across a campaign of lantern years. Preserve survivors, resources, innovations, and events on the campaign records; an individual kill or personal score does not determine the entire campaign result. Use the physical rulebook and cards for the selected campaign’s setup, objectives, and ending.

At the beginning of the Hunt Phase, choose an available quarry and level from the settlement’s options, then prepare the Hunt Board using that monster’s diagram. Basic and monster-specific hunt events occur along the journey. Higher levels affect hunt distance and showdown difficulty. Nemesis monsters arrive through events and cannot be hunted as ordinary quarry.

Build the AI and hit location decks and complete setup for the monster and level. A normal round has a monster turn followed by a survivors’ turn. The monster controller follows the cards to resolve targeting and actions and changes at the start of each round; this player is not an opposing faction.

Survivors choose their order, but each must finish their entire act before another begins. An act grants movement and one activation; activation can attack, activate gear, or interact with terrain. Unspent movement and activations are lost when that survivor ends their act.

Weapon speed plus modifiers determines attack dice, with accuracy determining hits. Hits draw monster hit locations to resolve individually. A wound attempt adds a d10 roll, weapon strength, and strength modifiers against toughness, with the location’s reactions also applying. A hit is not automatically a wound.

An ordinary wound moves the top AI card to the wound stack; if the deck is empty, first shuffle its discard into a new deck. A wound defeats the monster when neither deck nor discard has a card to move. Moods and traits in play need not also be removed. A critical wound requires a hit location with a critical wound effect.

Use only equipment in your own nine-slot gear grid. Cards must stay upright and cannot be rotated. Adjacent matching half-squares complete an affinity; bonuses require the conditions printed on the gear. Rearrangement is restricted to the Settlement Phase, with the official FAQ placing returning survivors’ gear reset at Step 8 rather than immediately on arrival.

The Settlement Phase handles settlement and story events, development, and the next departing party. Each returning survivor contributes one endeavor for innovations, locations, and other actions; resources pay for development and gear. Survival points instead fund unlocked survival actions: Dodge cancels one hit, Encourage stands a fallen survivor, and Dash and Surge require their respective innovations and legal timing. These actions are not all available from the start.