A son is born and a kingdom dies

So I took a couple of weeks off, because well Christmas and New Years, and my wife and I had our first son.  So a busy time.

So what have I been doing over a holiday of my wife being away in hospital?  Playing Kingdom Death:Monster.

KD:M has a reputation for being a brutal game, and in my case this was no different.  In fact I don't think I've played anything so harsh since I rolled dice to "B-17 Queen of the Skies"

The game is supposed to span about 25 game years.  My little civilization lasted 9 years.  The small settlement I had ventured into the darkness to hunt the monsters that lurked just beyond the lantern's light.

We lost a hunter on each trip, but the settlement slowly grew and developed despite the loss.  The remaining hunters got stronger, and I got better as a player hunting the white lions.  Then I made the mistake of hunting the screaming antelope.  The problem with this was that on both counts while hunting the antelope we found the half eaten remains of the antelope and were ambushed by a mighty great white lion that was well beyond the hunters ability.  While I avoided any TPKs, my most experienced hunters got killed off, sometimes three at a time.  I could probably bare all this if I could replace my lost survivors.  Nope.  Instead my survivors caught a case of ennui and wandered off into the darkness rather than breeding, or died in childbirth. Finally the civilization got the boon of twins being born only to have a strange knight appear and kill off almost all the remaining survivors, which included the only remaining female.  So now, only two hunters remained against the inevitable darkness went off on their last hunt together never to return.

So a horrible sad tale was woven by the game, and I can't wait to play it again now that my wife is back to play with me, and we'll see if we can adventure further into the twisted darkness that is KD:M