Another Lantern Year another Frogdog. It’s the early game, we do not have a lot of options yet and, well, besides, with those resource draws from last year we couldn’t really build much of anything. So, straight back to the froggy spawning pools we go.

But first: time for events! And there were quite a few to deal with.
Settlement Event! We drew Rivalry. Not great, but not the worst. Ragnar and Calys had a fight but luckily I rolled a 3. So they both beat each other senseless and were not allowed to depart this year, but they remained alive and the Rivalry did not linger on into future lantern years.
Next up, Endless Screams. A cacophony of terror filled the darkness from afar. The Screaming Antelope made its presence known to us. Lucille tried to calm the settlement down and with a good roll of a 6 she managed to do just that. It’s always a good sign when the person speaking up does not get their jaw broken.
And finally the Frogdog event Lingering Cough. After quick glance at the table I chose Milton. And he, err, coughed so hard his eye exploded and he got chosen become our Mere Navi… yay?

With Milton ascended to this status of oracle for the settlement we now have the ability to interpret omens. For each omen we come across we gain a token and once there are 3 we can use the Mere Navi innovation to trigger a Metamorphosis Festival – which sounds … questionable great!

For our endeavors, I knew I wanted to start innovating this year but aside from that there was little to do at the moment. So, we augured. And, oh boy, did we augur. Instantly Lucille and Ragnar triggered intimacy and between a 2 and a 6 I felt compelled to reroll the 2 into a 7. And once again, a child was born: a girl I named Renna.
The other augury fizzled out though, only giving a survival.

The innovate gave me the option between Hovel and Paint and, yeah, that felt like an easy choice: I took Paint and secured the survival action dash for our community.
I don’t mind an early Hovel too much myself, with the extra survival for everybody and being one step closer to Clan of Death, I don’t think its as bad, but of course it is A) no Symposium and B) Bed, Family and Partnership all do somewhat pollute the early innovation deck with bad choices.

Finally I found myself confronted with the question of what to build. As we needed the organ to innovate, the buckler was off the table. With not much else to choose from with all these bones and hides, I built Frogdog sleeves, a bone club, another rawhide chest and headband and finally collected some more stone noses from the edge of the settlement.
That felt like the best I could do.

Trying to get more stuff from the Frogdog gear to play with, the hunting party was assembled:
Lana (frogdog sleeves, bone dagger)
Beni (bone darts, -1ACC)
Gond (bone club, bits of rawhide)
Jerryn (bone blade, rawhide set)

This time around, as we set out, we discovered a strange statue not far from our settlement (Basic HE06: Faceless Statue) and we all gained an additional survival for the task at hand.
Not resting, we found ourselves again surrounded by that strange grass that sounded like Fits of Laughter when crushed. We gained +2 Insanity and moved on towards a longer path (Basic HE04: Famine), and we were presented with a choice: roll on the table or roll a different HE. Soon we stood at the Test of Courage (HE85), which nobody could undertake. A long treck, ultimately leading to nothing.
And finally, we met a travelling Mask Salesman (HE53) who immediately took a liking to Gond, and sold him a Phoenix Mask for his name. Thus the bone club-man was henceforth to be called Hawk.
Not a bad hunt all in all.

Little could I know at this point, just how much this fight would feel like a duel between Jerryn and the Frogdog. Hawk might have also dealt a fair amount of wounds to the monster, but he was hardly ever the focus of its attention.
(Having finished typing the whole post, this does not feel as accurate anymore. Hawk had a much larger roll to play with wounding the monster consistently, but Jerryn got all the attention.)
Meanwhile, Jerryn who got a stink token because of his monster grease, was targeted by Gnashing and Barking. Which hit twice before the dodge and he even took the brain damage.

Hawk took the chance and attacked from the blind spot and hit and wounded once. The bone club being cumbersome (spend both attack and move to activate the card) getting any attack in like this is generally great. Having dash would also give me the ability to dash onto the Mammoth Leaves and activate them to jump in with the bone club instead.
The first of many bone darts missed. (Just assume they missed until I mention them again.)
It was Jerryn’s turn to swing at this point. The man. The MVP. He hit twice and drew the trap. Yup. This dog meant business. Luckily the basic attack missed entirely besides readying the fart.
Lana still could go and try to ‘disarm’ that stink-bomb. So she dashed onto the mammoth leaf behind her and jumped. She hit twice and even wounded the monster’s shoulder. The fart got discarded as she was knocked down on reaction.

With 8 cards remaining, the Frogdog drew Splashing Slap targeting Beni. 1 hit turned into 1 dodge.

Hawk swung again as the opportunity presented itself: 2 quick wounds.
Jerryn dashed onto one of the leaves and jumped. He drew the Carbuncle – impervious – but we crit it! And he is the sole stinky survivor so he gained +3 Understanding! We triggered Insight (and I forget to draw a seed pattern) and he gained +1ACC – nice! He also wounded the Froggy on the death blow and removed the fart. That’s loads!

5 cards remaining. The Frogdog wanted to have Just a Taste of Jerryn. It missed all. With +3 EVA from monster grease, SotF and the rawhide chest, he’d only get hit on 8+.

Jerryn quickly counters and wounded the Frogdog in the Frogboob as Hawk failed his leaping attack this time around.

4 cards remaining. The monster drew Slough – a mood that adds a +1 Damage and -1 Toughness token and makes all survival actions more expensive to perform. Yikes. Luckily it gets discarded after resolving the trap, which we managed expertly on Hawk’s next attack. He got hit hard in the body though.
Lana swiftly got kicked in the chest on reaction and it was up to Jerryn once again.

Another dash onto the leaf and jump! 2 more hits, 1 wound and 1 critical hit. A crit on the throat no less. This would trigger Sad Frogdog Song – a story event. This would be the chance to gain the Frogdog’s Secret Fighting Art of the same name. Well, instead I rolled a 2 and saw myself getting a brain trauma. Luckily just one. And, oh no. Jerryn rolled another 2! That’s death!
I took a moment to think about it, but ultimately, Jerryn was shaping up to be the MVP of this early stretch of the game, and I did not want him to die, I rerolled that 2 into a 10.

2 cards remaining. The Frogdog drew Gnashing and Barking again. 0 hits on Jerryn and no Brain Damage.

Jerryn counters and starts wailing on the Carbuncle again, to no avail. The rest of the group just reposition.

Still 2 cards remaining. The Frogdog wanted another Taste of Jerryn. It missed with everything. The counter attack on the other hand wounded once, but Jerryn still got lightly wounded as the Frogdog turned and ran away into the closest corner. Hawk jumped in trying to finish the fight, but only wounded once.

All in all I don’t think we were in any real danger for most of the fight, the +3 EVA on Jerryn are helping out a lot. And as long as the Frogdog stays on a single target like that I am in excellent shape. Of course, thanks to Brain Trauma, Jerryn’s life still flashed before his eyes and we had to burn a reroll to keep him alive.

As we gained our rewards, Jerryn (Blotted Out FA – urgh) and Beni (+1 STR) aged up.

Those resources do look a lot better than the year before, but I do feel like there’s another Frogdog in my immediate future. We’ll have to see what we can do with these first though.
I’d love to get a full set going before we fight the Butcher Lvl1, but we’ll have to pray to lady luck for that.

Thank you very much for your time and don’t let the Frogdog bite,
Amathul