Choosing your starting King sets your initial Base card, starter deck of 8 unique cards, 9 faction-specific Perks, and your Royal Council Decrees. Meanwhile, winning Diplomacy wars against rival Kings injects their Troops, Buildings, and Enchantments directly into your run.
| Faction | Base Card | Core Archetype | Unlock Requirement | Top Diplomacy Partners |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| King of Nothing | Castle | Balanced Foundations, Shields & Adjacency Scaling | Unlocked by default when starting 9 Kings. | king-of-spells, king-of-nature |
| King of Spells | Citadel | Enchantment Duplication, Chain Lightning & Tome Scaling | Use 9 Enchantment cards across runs. | king-of-nothing, king-of-progress |
| King of Greed | Palace | Gold Economy, Mercenary Hordes & Dispenser Hyper-Speed | Spend 999 Gold across runs. | king-of-nothing, king-of-blood |
| King of Blood | Pagoda | Sacrifice Loops, The Pit Synergies & Infinite Summons | Kill 9,999 enemy units in battle. | king-of-nomads, king-of-greed |
| King of Nature | Treant | Exponential HP Scaling, Boar Riding & Troop Multiplication | Win 9 games on any difficulty. | king-of-nothing, king-of-stone |
| King of Stone | Stronghold | Fortification Walls, Tower Defense & Earthworks Card Loops | Build 99 Buildings/Towers across runs. | king-of-progress, king-of-nature |
| King of Progress | Mothership | Plot Level-Up Chains, Lab Rats & Pit Recycling | Level up 299 plots across runs. | king-of-stone, king-of-greed |
| King of Nomads | Warlord | Plot Migration, Raptor Mounts & Destruction Scaling | Play 99 Troop cards across runs. | king-of-blood, king-of-stone |
| King of Time | Bastion | Time Travel (Year -1), Amplifier Replication & Battle-Duration Scaling | Complete the Time progression unlock condition in Singleplayer / Quest progression. | king-of-progress, king-of-spells |
| Rainbow Army (Jack of Rainbows) | None (Encounter Boss) | Game-Breaking Rainbow Cards & Cross-Faction Multipliers | Unplayable boss faction. Appears in standard runs (Year 11+) or Year 1 with the Lunatic Rainbow Perk. | king-of-nothing, king-of-time |
Balanced Foundations, Shields & Adjacency Scaling
The starter ruler of 9 Kings and the most versatile all-rounder. Following Patch #14 ("Nothing Makeover"), King of Nothing gained his own dedicated Decree pool and special scaling traits: Soldiers gain +1% damage per unit added to their troop, and Paladins gain bonus HP whenever they receive a damage buff.
Enchantment Duplication, Chain Lightning & Tome Scaling
A magic-focused ruler built around creating small squads of hyper-enchanted super-troops. Wizards gain bonus damage for every Enchantment they carry, Warlocks gain HP for every Tome cast, and Libraries have a 50% yearly chance to duplicate an adjacent troop’s Enchantments.
Gold Economy, Mercenary Hordes & Dispenser Hyper-Speed
The premier economic powerhouse of 9 Kings. Every gold coin earned permanently accelerates Dispenser towers (+1% attack speed per 1 gold gained), while current gold stockpiles dynamically scale Mercenary troop counts (1 unit per 9 gold in Patch #29+, improved from 15 gold).
Sacrifice Loops, The Pit Synergies & Infinite Summons
A high-velocity swarm and sacrifice ruler. Reworked heavily in Patch #29, King of Blood pairs disposable Imps and Bombers with Cemeteries (spawns Skeletons when adjacent allies die), Manglers (summon Meat Trolls & sacrifice adjacent units), Demon Altars (+0.5% permanent strength per dead ally), and Oblation (pit-scaling troop count tome).
Exponential HP Scaling, Boar Riding & Troop Multiplication
The king of relentless biological scaling. Forests boost adjacent troops’ HP every year, Procreate adds +9 units instantly, Clone duplicates high-value cards, and Mycelium accumulates permanent fighting Spores across every battle. Boars can be mounted by adjacent troops, granting +1% stats per 1 Boar HP.
Fortification Walls, Tower Defense & Earthworks Card Loops
A tower-defense specialist designed to stall enemy waves behind Wallmaker barriers while Trebuchets, Ballistas, Flametowers, and poison-infused Cauldrons shred the battlefield. Earthworks unlocks adjacent plots while returning up to 3 copies of a target plot back to your hand.
Plot Level-Up Chains, Lab Rats & Pit Recycling
Built around industrial level-up dominoes. Lab Rats have no maximum level cap and automatically level up whenever any adjacent plot levels up. Concabulators level up your entire kingdom upon reaching Level 3, Overhaul destroys a plot to level up escalating numbers of random plots, and Recycler (Patch #29) buffs adjacent plots on every Pit discard.
Plot Migration, Raptor Mounts & Destruction Scaling
Introduced in Patch #13 (v0.8), the King of Nomads breaks traditional board rules with a mobile Troop-Base (Warlord) and Migration tomes that reposition plots across the 3x3 grid while granting +10% DMG and HP. Camp buffs adjacent plots whenever any card lands on an empty tile, and Dragon’s Den scales +20% stronger every time a plot is destroyed.
Time Travel (Year -1), Amplifier Replication & Battle-Duration Scaling
Added in Patch #15 (v0.8.5), the 9th King bends the calendar itself. Portal rewinds the run to an earlier year while keeping your board intact—allowing you to re-trigger Royal Councils, Diplomats, and Prophet Blessings, or even travel to Year -1 to face "emiT fo noipmahC". Amplifier copies every buff it receives onto all adjacent plots.
Game-Breaking Rainbow Cards & Cross-Faction Multipliers
The Rainbow Army is a special neutral boss army led by the Jack of Rainbows. Defeating this faction grants access to exclusive Rainbow Cards—ultra-powerful Tomes, Troops, and Buildings such as Echoform, Gigantify, X-Ray, Shrine, Slime, Golem, and the 9 new 1.0 Rainbow cards (Reflector, Reactor, Factory, Leech, Great Hall, Singularity, Accumulator, Mantra, Hound).
