Inscryption (UP)

• No Hook (5 Points) - You will start every Kaycee's Mod run with the Angler's Fish Hook as one of your three (or two) Backpack items. Choose this Challenge and the Hook will be removed, leaving an empty spot to fill on your next visit to a Backpack event.
• No Clover (5 Points) - In Act I, you could unlock a Clover that allows you to re-roll your choices for card events. This is now available for every Kaycee's Mod run unless you select this Challenge.
• Smaller Backpack (5 Points) - Choose this Challenge to only hold two items in your Backpack for the run
• Pricey Pelts (5 Points) - Trapper Pelts costs more. The cost is usually doubled or tripled, but it changes every visit. In Kaycee's Mod, when you visit the Trapper, you can buy the Pelt Knife for 7 teeth. This knife works just like the Scissors, but gives you an extra pelt for your deck. This item's cost always stays at 7 teeth and does not change even if you select this Challenge.

Level 2
Challenge Level 2 requires 15 points selected. The good news is the Challenge you just unlocked (Boss Totems) is 15 points and does not add all that much of a difficulty spike (just a Totem to the four boss battles) You will still need to use the Vanilla Starter Deck (Stoat, Bullfrog and Wolf) for this run. Remember to check the Oil Painting at the beginning of every run in case you have yet to unlock the three new Backpack items.

At completion of Level 2, you will unlock the following items:

Cards: Mole Man? (Red Eyed Imposter Card - Ijiraq)
Starter Deck: High Cost deck (Black Goat, Moose Buck, Mole)
Challenges: Tipped Scales (20 Points) - Selecting this Challenge will put you one point behind in every card battle. This means that instead of the scale starting at 0 at the beginning of a card battle, it will be at -1, so you will always start only 4 hits away from losing the battle


Level 3
Challenge Level 3 will require 30 points worth of challenges and will be the first level you can select your new High Cost deck. If you select the new Challenge, Tipped Scales, please keep in mind you will start every card battle one hit behind. Its the kind of change that can really throw you the first time you activate it.

The Ijiraq card is a very sneaky card and will disguise itself as one of your other cards until the card is played. The only thing that gives it away is the small added red color in the card, usually in the eyes of the animal the card is representing. It is a great card for offense with 4 Power.  It has only 1 Health, but the  Repulsive Sigil which prevents any opponent card from attacking it. The Ijiraq has been known to mess with the Fair Hand Mechanic (See Start // Finish ) so use it wisely. Last tip for this card: If the Ijiraq copies a card and you notice you have two versions of the same card in your hand, the Ijiraq will always be the first copy and the second will be the authentic card, because the Ijiraq copies the cards still in your deck, never one thats already in your hand.

At completion of Level 3, you will unlock the following items  

Cards: Flying Ant and Mud Turtle (Shield Bot variant)
Starter Deck: Ant Deck (Queen Ant, Flying Ant, Skunk)
Challenges: All Totem Battles (20 points) - Selecting this Challenge will turn every regular card battle into a Totem Battle. This doesn't raise the stakes of the run too high until you add the More Difficult Challenges (unlocked at Level 5) but it still can make a card battle extra spicy.


Level 4
Challenge Level 4 will require 40 points worth of Challenges and is a great opportunity to use your new Ant Starter Deck. I would suggest loading up on Ant cards (Queen, Flying and Worker Ants) as well as any other Insect tribe cards. The Amalgam is particularly useful as it acts as an Ant when added to the board by increasing the power of all Ants being played at that time. Invest in a good Insect Totem from the Woodcarver, and you may find that the combined power of the Ants. along with the rest of your Insect Deck, has the ability to take you through Kaycee's Mod without too much trouble

Cards: Dire Wolf (Double Strike Sigil) and Dire Wolf Cub (Bone Digger and Fledgling  Sigils) 
Challenges: No Boss Rares (15 Points) - Selecting this will cause the three cards offered after a Boss Battle win to no longer be rare cards


Level 5
Challenge Level 5 requires 50 points of Challenges. I preferred to stick with both Totem Battle Challenges and the new No Boss Rares for most runs over the Tipped Scales, but do whatever feels best for you. The new Challenge only pertains to the three cards you can choose from after the three boss battles. I never found much use for most of the rare cards that weren't Mantis God and there are plenty of opportunities to get them other ways.

The new cards are both great to have in your deck. Dire Wolf (3 sacrifice) hits with a Double Strike of 2 Power (so 4 Power each turn) and fairly reselient with 5 Health. Dire Wolf Pup is a less expensive alternative at 2 sacrifice. Its first turn it will "dig up" one Bone, on the second turn it will evolve to the Dire Wolf for the rest of its time on the board and not produce any more Bones until it perishes.

You can continue working with the Ant Deck and Insect Totems, or whatever you are comfortable with, but you may find it is the last time you use any of the first three Starter Decks once you complete this Level successfully.

At the conclusion of Level 5 you will unlock:
Card: Meal Worm (Cost 2 Bone, 0 Power, 2 Health and the Morsel  Sigil) Meal Worm adds its stats to whatever sacrifices it, so at its base it will add 2 Health to the card that replaces it. Further upgrades to the card will transfer in the same way
Starter Deck: Triple Deck (Mantis God Deck) (Mantis God, Ring Worm, Ring Worm) - The best Starter Deck in Kaycee's Mod
Challenge: More Difficult (10 Points) X2 - More and stronger opposing creatures in all battles - This unlocks two identical 10 point Challenges you can choose one or both of, but I suggest you leave them until Skull Storm. They are just more of a headache, but really make the Mod challenging if you are into that.


Level 6
Challenge Level 6 will need 60 points of Challenges. In my experience, as I mentioned above, this is where you can really pick and choose the Challenges you work with and the two More Difficult Challenges are tough, especially combined with Totem Battle Challenges. You will see Leshy cheat and pull out the toughest combo of cards at the strangest times during the run. Totems will have Sigils like Trifurcated, Bifurcated, Fledgling, Stinky (and after Level 6 the Blood Lust Sigil) all much more often and throw harder enemies at you when you are at your weakest. You will need to deal with this Challenge eventually in Skull Storm, so try it out if you feel up to it, but it may slow you down a bit.

The new Meal Worm card is not very useful but it could help elevate your Mantis God or other low health heavy hitter cards and costs the low price of two Bones to put on the board. It only works as a sacrifice vessel with no attack. Even if you give it a Power upgrade, that would work much better being applied to the card you sacrifice the Meal Worm for anyway.

Now, let's talk about the cornerstone of the rest of your runs: The Mantis God Deck, or Triple Deck because of the MGs trifurcated attack  If you have not been told enough, there are two hidden mechanics in this game. The Fair Hand Mechanic and the Ringworm/Adder Survivors exploit. Both have been mentioned previously in this guide so I will summarize. What you want to do with this Starter Deck is feed one Ring Worm to the Survivors at the Campfire event. If the Survivors do not eat the Ring Worm on the second upgrade, quit out of the event, reload and power up the Mantis God twice instead. Once you can get the Survivors to eat the Ring worm (or Adder), they will die and you will be able to double upgrade your cards at every Campfire event without any fear of losing your cards for the rest of the run. Power up the Mantis God in Power and Health as you see fit and try to keep any other single sacrifice cards at a minimum (better with no other single sacrifice cards) so you can use the powered up Mantis God card at every battle to quickly win every time.

Completing Level 6 will unlock the following items:
Card: Wolverine (Blood Lust  Sigil - one additional point of Power for every kill during battle) 
Starter Deck: Waterborne Deck (King Fisher, King Fisher, Kraken)
Challenge: Single Candle (20 Points) - Any lost card battle will result in Game Over


Level 7
Challenge Level 7 will require 70 points of Challenges. The new Single Candle Challenge will likely be something you can manage. You may have spent a lot of time on your last candle for a better part of your previous runs already. Always remember, you can quit out of a losing battle and reload by selecting Continue Run which will pop you back to the map right before the battle so you can always try again without starting over. The cards in your hand and the cards you play against will likely be exactly the same, so you can always use this to your advantage to get the upperhand in most battles. It beats losing a run at the final card battle. No shame in reloading before you lose everything, I say.

The Wolverine card is only truly useful if you get a lot of use in it during battle. It does not retain the Power to use in the next card battle like the yet-to-be-unlocked Hodag, but it can clear a few cards out in a row if you get lucky or get an Unkillable Sigil on it to reuse after it perishes in the same battle. It costs 5 Bones, which isn't too easy to do at the beginning of a battle, so use it sparingly when it works for you.

I wasn't a fan of the Waterborne Starter Deck on my first two playthroughs of the game, but I did find when you really lean into the airborne sigil and get a number of high powered flying Feathered tribe cards you can really make use of the direct hits to your opponent. If you combine the two Kingfishers after increasing both their Power at a campfire, you can get a 4 Power (or more) airborne weapon that can nearly end each battle at the start if you minimize all the other single sacrifice cards. Using this method makes the Kraken a lot less useful, but if you do use it, place it on the leftmost slot. If you are not familiar with the Kraken from Act II, it will turn into one of the three tentacle cards (Bell, Hand or Mirror) A Bell Tentacle will have a Power of 4 if placed right next to the bell, so that is the best position to play the Kraken in. 

Completing Level 7 will unlock the following items:
Cards: Raccoon (Scavenger  Sigil - Bones from any enemy deaths while on board) and Lammergeier (Attack Power = 1/2 of Bones on Hand, Airborne)
Starter Deck: Bone Deck (Raccoon, Dire Wolf Pup, Coyote)


Level 8
Challenge Level 8, if you haven't noticed the pattern yet, requires 80 Points to complete. With no new challenge, you can focus on making the most out of the two new cards and even try out the new Starter Deck, which pairs nicely together.

If you use the Bone Deck, you can easily focus on using the Raccoon as your main, but it will need a few improvements if you are going to depend on it. The Raccoon only starts with a Power and Health of 1, so get to a Campfire if you can. The Raccoon's main strength is that it gives an additional Bone for every kill. You can use this to build up Bones and spend them on Bone cards, like the Coyote that you start with and the Wolverine, Cockroach, Vulture and any other powerful card that is purchased with Bones that you prefer. The Dire Wolf Pup you start with also gives one Bone on turn one, but once it evolves to the Dire Wolf, it stops producing Bones.

Alternatively, you can save up the Bones for your other new card, the Lammergeier.  This Airborne feathered tribe card has a Health of 4 and is based on a bearded vulture that feeds off bone marrow, so the card gets its Power level by halving the current amount of Bones on the table. Spending Bones on other cards will obviously lessen the Lammer's Power, so use your Bones in the best way that works for you. Lammergeier requires three sacrifice and is fairly rare to show up, but quite nice to pull it out towards the end of any of the Boss Battles, especially Leshy's three round fight. 

At the completion of Level 8 you will unlock the following items, as well as Roar of Challenge :

Card: Red Hart (Power taken from number of sacrifices on that turn, Health 2)
Challenge: Annoying Starters (10 Points) - Annoying  Sigil on your Starter Deck cards


Level 9
Challenge Level 9 requires 90 Points to complete. Not much has changed for this run, so it is a good time to use the Annoying Starter Challenge and the Mantis God Deck. The Annoying Sigil--if you didn't become familiar with it in Act III--gives the opposing card one extra Power point (basically the opposite of Stinky) This can be a bit...annoying...but it also gives the Ringworms in your Starter Deck an additional way to be removed. Continue feeding one of the Ringworms to the Campfire Survivors, and when you get the chance, sacrifice the other Ringworm to the Bone Lord or give its Annoying Sigil to another card, preferrably a triple sacrifice card with High Power and/or Health.

Red Hart is a card which, on concept, seems useful but it unfortunately does not hold up. Red Hart gets its Power from the amount of sacrifices made on that turn. On its first use, it will have a Power of 2 (its sacrifice requirement) or greater if other cards are sacrificed at that time, but if you make no sacrifices in the next turn, the Red Hart will have a Power of Zero. Because the number is not cumulative, the best this card can do is 4, but the worst (zero) outways its use in my opinion. Best to avoid using it too much. If you have an infinite sacrifice loop, on the ther hand, like an Ouroboros and Black Goat with Unkillable Sigil, then you can really get whatever Power you want, so use it if you can access those kinds of infinite sacrifice loops.

Complete Level 9 and you unlock the following items:

Cards: Tadpole (No cost Fledgling version of Bullfrog, evolves on second turn)
Challenge: Squirrel Fish (20 points) - Squirrel Deck becomes Aquasquirrels, making them Waterborne and cannot be used defensively to block hits.
Starter Deck: No Cost Deck / Geck Deck (Rabbit, Tadpole, Geck)


Level 10
Challenge Level 10, of course, requires 100 points. The new Challenge is manageable if you haven't been relying on your Squirrel cards to take hits for your other cards. Keep using them for sacrifices or next to an Alpha for Squirrel Wrangler  if you don't have it yet.

The Tadpole and the new Starter Deck are both a blessing and a curse, I find. The Tadpole is a Zero Power, 1 Health Waterborne with Fledgling Sigil. It has No Cost but also does nothing for you in its first turn. It evolves to a Bullfrog in turn 2 and is fine for what it is if you choose to use it in that way. Otherwise just use it as another sacrifice. Same goes for the Power-less Rabbit. The Geck only has 1 Power and 1 Health to start. The best thing to do here is power up the Geck as much as you can, duplicate it with Goobert and/or combine Gecks at the Mycologist for maximum power on this no cost card. For maximum usefulness, get an Unkillable Sigil on it and use it over and over again.

The curse side of this technique is in the fact that No Cost cards are not a guarantee to show up in your hand, so unlike the Fair Hand Mechanic, you will not be able to depend on a high Powered Geck every hand. It is suggested that you have a few other tricks up your sleeve when using this deck so that you are not hung out to dry. Remember that high sacrifice cards are going to be a lot easier to play with these extra no cost cards showing up in your hand, so having a few powerful triple or double sacrifice cards in your deck can get you through when the Geck doesn't show up.

Only a few more items left to unlock in Kaycee's Mod as you finish the tenth level run. Here's the two cards you unlock:
Cards: Pelt Lice (Double Strike , 4 sacrifice), Hodag (Bloodlust  sigil)


Level 11
Challenge Level 11 requires 110 points.  Another run that allows you to use your favorite Starter Deck and whatever Challenges work for you to meet the point threshold.  The only items to discuss in this run are the two new cards if you have the chance to use them.  The Pelt Lice card has two secret mechanics to it and the Hodag is a blood sacrifice version of Wolverine that retains its power from battle to battle, like the Ouroboros does through each death. 

Pelt Lice have a 4 sacrifice cost, with a Power and Health of 1 and a Double Strike Sigil. If you choose to power up the Pelt Lice once, it can become as powerful as the Dire Wolf, but its health is pretty low. The secret to the card is that you do not need to worry all that much about the 4 sacrifices it asks for, because if you play a pelt card (Rabbit, Wolf or Golden) the Pelt Lice card will jump out of your deck (does not need to be in your hand currently) and land directly next to the pelt card to attack the board. Just like the No Cost deck, pelts are not something you really can rely on to show up in your hand, but they are readily available during the run to buy or procure using the Pelt Knife. The other side of this mechanic is that the Trader will not do any business with you while you have a Pelt Lice card (they say your pelts are infected and they don't want them for trade) so you will not be able to get any new cards from the Trader events if you have a Pelt Lice card.

I don't have much information on the Hodag. It is a card that after three platinums of Inscryption, I did not ever get a chance to test out, unfortunately. I can tell you that it acts just like the Wolverine, by increasing its Power number for every kill it gets. The Hodag's memory must be better than a Wolverine, because that number does not reset from battle to battle. If you can get your hands on the Hodag early in the run, it may prove to be a very poweful card by the end. It starts with 1 Power and 5 Health, so use it when you can to increase its Power.

Once you finish the penultimate run of Kaycee's Mod, you unlock the following items:

Cards: Curious Egg
Starter Deck: Curious Egg Deck (Curious Egg, Curious Egg, Curious Egg)
Challenge: Grizzly Bosses (50 Points) - The Prospector, Angler and Trapper/Trader second round of battle is all Grizzly Bears


Level 12
Challenge Level 12 requires 120 points. The Challenge unlocked in Level 11 requires a good deal of management throughout the run, so it may be best to leave it for the Skull Storm final run, but I will review it here as well. The Grizzly Bosses Challenge changes the second phase/round of the three bosses (The Prospector, The Angler and The Trapper and Trader). Once you hit the second phase on any of these battles, all cards on the board in the top and middle row will be removed and replaced with eight Grizzly Bear cards (Power of 4, Health of 6) Grizzlies are tough cards to beat one on one, so eight of them will need some ingenuity.  If you choose this Challenge, you will want the Wise Clock, Scissors and/or the Pelt Knife, as well as at least one card that can hit with at least 5 points of Power.

Brute force can sometimes work to survive the Grizzly cards but using any or all of these Backpack items can give you the clear advantage:

• If you have the Wise Clock - leave your left slot open and place a card with a Power of 5 or more in the second slot. Use the Wise Clock, turning the eight cards in the middle and bottom rows one slot clockwise (get it?) and you will be able to hit the open spot on the left side of the board and end the battle.
• If you have the Scissors or Pelt Knife - Remove a card in the middle row and play a card with Power 5 or higher against that spot to end the battle.
• If you don't have any of these three items but you have the Hourglass - You still have a chance, If you have a card that can hit with atleast 6 Power. I was able to use a well OP Mantis God to clear three spots during a battle and using the hourglass, the boss had to pass so I was able to win in the next turn. Its a long shot, but still better then starting all over
• If you don't have any of these - Good luck. Hit 'em with whatever you got.

You will have just unlocked the Curious Egg and the Starter Deck with three copies of this tricky card. Playing with this deck is a challenge itself, but quite fun in prospect.  Inside each of the three Curious Eggs is a Hydra with the ability to hit five times (Power of 1, but still very powerful with Bifurcated  and Trifurcated attack together) and a Health of 5. 

• One of every Tribe: Feathered, Canine, Insect, Hooved, Reptile
• A Card with every Power Level from 1 to 5
• A Card with every Health Level from 1 to 5