Welcome to our Kinfire Focus series, where every week we’re going to spotlight a different part of gameplay in Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall: Character selection, combat, adventuring, city actions, and deckbuilding. This week we'll be highlight what is quite possibly the most important decision you're going to make in this game: which Seeker to play!
Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall is a 1-4 player game, but there are 6 Seekers to choose from, so you’ll need to play the game multiple times to experience all of them. Each Seeker brings something new to the campaign. There are NPC interactions and alternate routes only available if a certain Seeker is in your party, and alternatively sometimes a Seeker may hinder progress (everyone makes enemies) and make your task more difficult to accomplish.
So which character should you play? Let’s go through each of them and highlight what makes them unique, including passive abilities, starting decks, and their personal lanterns.
Asha of Brillbrook (she/they)
Asha was the very first character designed for Kinfire Chronicles, and while Kevin Wilson doesn’t have favorites, if he did she might be his.
Orphaned at a young age, young elf Asha was taken in by a sect of the Temple of Ziva and trained as an assassin. After fleeing from the sect, she took to the streets as a thief, and eventually joined the Seekers’ Guild. Although she prefers to do things her own way, she has a soft spot for her team.
Asha is perfect for stealthy players who prefer to attack from the shadows. Her passive ability allows other Seekers to deal an extra point of damage if Asha is in the same space as the enemy. This means she’s going to be in the thick of battle often, but she’s certainly not the Seeker with the most health or armor, so keeping her out of enemy focus is going to be imperative.
That’s where Asha’s lantern comes in. Their lantern does 6 damage, and most importantly, allows them to refocus any enemies currently focused on them. It is also the only lantern card that isn’t an aggressive attack, meaning it doesn’t draw focus.
As a rogue, Asha excels at dexterity-based challenges, and as such their deck has more green cards than any others. While primarily a melee fighter, Asha does have a couple ranged attacks in their starting deck, including a throwing knife that when played can be placed back on top of your deck rather than discarded. This means you’ll always have an attack ready in your back pocket. They also have several situational cards that can turn the tide of battle if played at the right time.
If you want to see Asha in action, both Chrissy Costanza and Felicia Day play her in the Kinfire Playthrough series on YouTube.
Feyn Longstride (he/him)
When designing Feyn, Kevin Wilson wanted to create a "bard with melee skills", and decided to target him at players who like to be able to support the group as a whole.
Feyn is a lighthearted human who was born lucky and is currently trying to keep it that way. He hides his mysterious past behind his ever-present grin and witty sense of humor. He has a song or story for every occasion.
Feyn’s passive ability is pretty straightforward: he can have 2 wards in play at once, rather than every other Seeker’s one. Unlike most other Seekers’ wards, which only apply to themselves, Feyn’s starting wards apply to everyone. His wards represent his songs, and provide the team with armor, health, or enemy debuffs depending on the color of cards played.
Feyn’s lantern does 4 aggressive damage, and can uniquely be performed as a melee or ranged attack.It is the only lantern in the game to be a free action, meaning Feyn can let his lantern loose and then keep on swinging. Depending on the luck of the draw, we’ve seen Feyn use his lantern twice in one turn.
Feyn is the perfect character for those who like to support their team and have a move for every problem. He’s a jack of all trades, not performing particularly high damage attacks and not having super high health or armor. But what he does have is a nice combination of melee and ranged attacks, as well as more white boosts in his deck. He's also the only Seeker to start the game with a white action card, making boosting much easier. Also, with the amount of free action cards in his deck, he excels at cycling through his cards, charging his lantern, and refilling his deck.
You can see two very different playstyles for Feyn in the Kinfire Playthrough series on YouTube. When Krystina Arielle plays Feyn, she focuses on damage dealing and cycling her hand, while B. Dave Walters plays Feyn more defensively, providing his team with life-saving health and armor.
Khor (they/them)
Khor is a Revenant- a departed soul inhabiting a metal shell through the power of kinfire. They have no memory of who they used to be, but they know they enjoy the company of their teammates now. They are always accompanied by their pet mothling, Flickers, who is drawn to the kinfire burning inside of Khor.
Khor is the perfect Seeker for those who like protecting their team and are willing to step forward and take the damage. Their passive ability allows them to redirect one point of damage away from any Seeker within one space of Khor. Khor is also the character with the most starting armor, so they have a bit of a buffer with which to soak up that damage.
Khor’s lantern does the least amount of damage out of all the Seekers’ lanterns, but it's an area of effect attack that pulls all enemies within one space of Khor into their space. It then allows them to gain armor equal to the number of enemies affected. Clearly the lantern is designed to be more effective when there are more enemies on the board, but it can also become more deadly if Khor has just pulled a bunch of enemies into their space and grabbed their focus.
As to be expected, most of Khor’s cards are aggressive attacks, as their entire playstyle relies on keeping enemy focus away from their squishier teammates. Similar to their lantern, Khor also has a card called “Taunt” which does no damage (and cannot be increased by boosts), but provides them with 2 armor and drags the enemy into their space, and possibly away from a hurting Seeker. Khor’s deck relies on acquiring armor and discarding it at the right time, either to increase damage, target extra enemies, or to protect against a big attack. Khor is most effective when close to their friends, and certain Seekers like Valora and Naz have passive abilities that can make Khor a real powerhouse.
You can see Khor in action in the hands of our webcomic author Brandon Chen with the second team of Seekers in the Kinfire Playthrough series on YouTube.
Naz of the Windstrikes (she/her)
Naz is a farmgirl who longed to make a difference. When her orcish weather sense told her something menacing was coming, she left her home to train and learn how to best protect those she loves. Though quite young, she has grown into a master strategist.
Naz’s abilities as a tactician are perfect for those who like the ability to affect the entire battlefield, and don’t mind the challenge of juggling many options. Her passive ability allows her to give up her movement in exchange for moving one of her allies instead. With a creative player, Naz can move a Seeker out of harm’s way, closer to their target, or help utilize other Seeker passive abilities like Asha’s and Valora’s.
Naz’s passive and lantern abilities are also present in her deck, though in different forms. Certain cards do more damage if there are or aren’t other Seekers in the same space as Naz, and other cards allow her to move to her enemy or bring her enemy to her. Her Probe ability lets her stun the enemy and pull 4 chits out of the bag, choosing 1 numbered chit to move to the spent chits area. She’s also the only Seeker to have two of the incredibly valuable chit redraw boosts in her starting deck. She doesn’t have much in the way of ranged attacks though, so expect to be right in the thick of it often.
Brian David Gilbert showcases Naz’s ability to both deal and take damage in the first three episodes of the Kinfire Playthrough series.
Roland Wordforger (he/him)
Roland is an inquisitive member of the dwarven Scholars’ Guild who specializes in fire magic. He’s always willing to jump into battle with a dynamic spell or an overpowering blow, even when it means putting himself in harm’s way.
Roland is a true Glass Cannon in that he hits hard, but you have to be aware of enemy focus since he has the lowest number of combined health and armor. He is a wait-and-strike type of character who performs just as well in a support role, thanks in large part to his passive ability: True Friend. Roland is the only Seeker who can ignore card matching requirements when playing a boost card. This may tempt you to play all of your boosts right away, but the best Roland players use their boosts thoughtfully and carefully (just without the restriction of “I only have red boosts left!”)
Roland’s lantern does 3 damage (the second-lowest amount for any lantern card), but it is an area-of-effect attack, and also allows you to put 3 status effects of your choice amongst your targets in whatever way you want. When played at the right time, and when choosing the right status effects, this lantern can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Roland's area of expertise is status effects. His starting deck is dominated by ranged attacks that inflict the Hurt status, which allows him to do a bit of extra damage on a time-delayed basis. However, he also has several cards that grow more powerful the more statuses are piled on an enemy. When played at the opportune moment, his Well-Timed Blow has done upwards of 20 damage in playtests. Lastly, be careful with what you do with Roland's attacks. He has the only starting deck with a friendly-fire attack in the form of Fireball. Friends don't light friends on fire. Well, not without consent, anyway.
Ryan Verniere highlights Roland’s true friend ability (and how not to throw him in the middle of combat) in the first three episodes of the Kinfire Playthrough series.
Valora Helmsman (she/her)
Valora was raised as a noblewoman before running away to pursue a life of travel and adventure. She is a born leader and a skilled archer who would rather strike from a distance than get her hands dirty.
As far as character design goes, Valora was intended to be the “beginner” character. That doesn’t mean she’s boring, but her attacks are relatively straightforward and she doesn’t have many free actions or cards to create combos. She’s good at hitting things and causing damage. While she doesn’t begin with any armor herself, her passive ability lets her give an armor card to another Seeker within 1 space of her any time Valora moves to a space with no enemies. Healing is fairly rare, so the next best thing is not taking the damage in the first place, and she is good at helping her friends with that. While your instinct with Valora might be to hide in a corner and rapid fire, her passive encourages you to move her about the board.
At 7 damage, Valora’s lantern inflicts the highest amount of damage of all the Seeker lanterns, and can target any space on the battlefield.
One look at her character design, and you know Valora’s going to excel at ranged combat, in fact she doesn’t have a single melee attack in her starting deck. Valora's Bow is her main 'combo' card, and Kevin Wilson explained that it's fun from a design standpoint because it changes player behavior a fair bit when it’s in her hand. Normally, players tend to try and run out their hands to charge their lanterns, but when a player has Valora's Bow in hand, a lot of times they'll switch to trying to 'keep their hand alive' by drawing cards when they can instead of discarding them. Valora may not have the variety of options a character like Naz or Roland has, but you know you’re always going to have a ranged attack of solid damage ready to go.
You can catch Twitch streamer Angeless slinging arrows and passing out armor with the second group of Seekers in the Kinfire Playthrough series on YouTube.
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Which Seeker are you going to play as the first time you open the box?
And don’t forget to check back next week for an in-depth focus on combat!
Late Pledges for Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall are available until 3/10/2023. You can save $30 off MSRP by ordering now!