Before I focus on the lantern year at hand, I had the chance to start a different settlement with a friend the day prior to writing this and we managed to get all the way up to the Butcher. So the statistics page has been and will be updated with all my wins, deaths and losses as that settlement progresses.
The Frogdog fights we have had were rough in so far that the monster was being even more stingy with its various types of hide than in Bogstop. However, we absolute rinsed the first Butcher. I have never had such a one-sided fight against a Butcher Lvl1 before. We just beat that poor guy up like no tomorrow.
Anyway, as I still struggle to determine when it is best to switch to Lvl2 – and I don’t want the settlement I am recording for Season 1 to falter too early – I did opt to target a Lope Lvl1 for this year once again. Getting any set besides rawhide completed would also just be peachy.

But first: as we were heading home, a Heatwave struck. Sir Hermes suffered the worst because of the bone club he was carrying (it has the heavy keyword) so he had to rest up at home. And then… there was that White Speaker. Dead in a pool of black water.
And who is that? Didn’t only 3 people return? But..?
The settlement had forgotten about Lana. It took us a reroll on the event (I had rolled a 5) to not forget Red Fist (SFA). And yet still, a sense of unease remained. As if there had been something we should be remembering, but did not.

Sullen we continued on by innovating. This year we had a choice between Sculpture and Inner Lantern. And whilst it would bloat the deck further, I picked Inner Lantern so we had access to all survival actions for the time being.

With the remaining resources I first built the Weapon Crafter. Whilst we were not able to use it immediately, it would prove helpful in the future and an important stepping stone towards making actually useful weapons. Killing that last Screaming Antelope took entirely too long. So many Slams.
On the topic of Antelopes, we did of course gain the Stone Circle settlement location last year and were now presented with the opportunity to build the screaming set as well.
Highest priority was Voluptuous Bodysuit though, so I built that first with the remaining 2 endeavors (which also required face painting, something I had not considered beforehand). The bodysuit grants 1 armor to all hit locations and turns any 2 a monster attacking its wearer rolls into a 1 (I wrote about all the Glow stuff here).
We round out gear creation by putting together 1 piece of lope gear, another monster grease, 1 more piece of rawhide and a dried acanthus.

The rawhide set went to Glow, as she had Thrill Seeker (FA). Lelia continued along the path of the shield and Calys would also come along again to hone her abilities with the Twilight Sword. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I wondered as the Feline Entity claimed parts of the game board. A lot of wonky angles are because she never left my side during this lantern year.

The chosen hunters:
Ragnar (bone dagger, left over bits)
Calys (Twilight Sword, rawhide bits)
Glow (bone blade, rawhide set)
Lelia (spiked buckler, frogdog bits)

The hunt was on and we drew our first card – Stampede. We heard it long before we saw it. The presence of the Screaming God and deeper mysteries were already felt in these places. And it only took a lantern 10 to corner one of the antelopes and start the showdown immediately. Good job us!
Lelia (+1MOV) and Calys (+1 useless SPD-token) triggered bold from the event.

The Toppled Pillar and Giant Stone Face terrain I drew for set-up wouldn’t do much for us so I placed them out of the way and just waited for the Antelope’s first move. It wanted to Back Kick somebody, but with nobody in range, it ended up eating 1 of the acanthus instead.

It had come just close enough for Lelia to reach now, but she failed to wound.

10 cards in the deck and not done eating, the lope tried to take a Bite out of Lelia but missed by an inch.

To round out these first two rounds of almost nothing – as Ragnar and Lella missed – the Twilight Sword hit… but failed to wound on a 1. Thankfully Glow stepped up to the challenge once again this hunt and dealt the first wound.

9 cards remaining. Our prior reluctance suddenly seemed justified as it turned into revulsion with us realizing how the monster was Infested with huge squirming ticks. I resolved myself early on to not bother with the ticks for Calys in particular, whilst I remained careful with the other three to not roll that dice needlessly often. A second card was drawn and it was Stomp and Snort, this behavior seemed too strange for Ragnar and he took off running.

The Twilight Sword found an opening from the blind spot and secured a wound and a point of proficiency for Calys whilst also giving the Antelope a -1MOV token.
And even Lelia, the shiled bearer joined in – a clean hit and wound to further her along as well! Glow merely picked up Ragnar so he could get the bug patch – another Nightmare Tick was secured for the settlement.

7(6) cards remaining. Another Back Kick was drawn, it missed Calys.

Ragnar was now on plant duty as he picked another acanthus. I did not want to lope to suddenly start healing. Lelia attacked and whilst it did not wound, she took out a super dense hit location so Glow was free to swing away. And she went for the eyes! I dislike that hit location but sadly we did not get a crit despite being able to attack it in the first place. Another wound, also without consequences followed.

5(4) cards remaining. Another Back Kick. We were through the deck already. It tried to get Lelia but missed its 6+ on a 5.

Calys joined Ragnar in gathering herbs and both got more fresh acanthus. Meanwhile Glow’s attack failed as her bone blade got tangled in the monster’s horns and she fell backwards trying to pull it free.

5(4) cards remaining. The lope tried to Bite Lelia again. Another miss. Misses all around actually, as none of the hunters even landed a hit.

5(4) cards remaining. Still the stalemate continued. It Stomped and Snorted excitedly which freaked out Glow.

At that point Calys has had enough of this meaningless back and forth and she rejoined the fight. She rolled a perfect hit for the Twilight Sword ..
and the lope f-ing ate it. It ate the sword. Damn.
Here I was worrying about the bone blade and then the lope just eats the Twilight Sword.. Okay..
In the stunned confusion Ragnar sneaked in a wound but that was all I managed.

4(3) cards remaining. Stomp and Snort again, targeting Glow again but it did nothing that time.

I threw a bone dart, but the trend of missing continued for them. Glow was just about ready to take up the mantle of hero again though. She hit twice and rolled 2 lantern 10s in succession. Even if only the first hit location was a crit, it was a nice change of pace as she carved a herself a beast steak out of that flank. The reflex that triggered meant nothing on the still mostly fully armored Glow.
Calys took the time, weaponless as she now was to pick the final acanthus (and gain nothing from it).

2(1) card remaining. Stomp and Snort would be on rotation. It knocked down Lelia.

The lope did prove once again to be a poor specimen in terms of bonus resources, at least as far as other lopes were concerned.

Well, we did it. Not sure it was worth a Twilight Sword but.., maybe the hooded knight will bring us a new one?
All in all it was a fine encounter, we got shield specialization onto Lelia which will help out in future and dagger onto Ragnar. And if nothing else we should be looking at a piece of lope gear or two and a scrap sword.

Thank you very much for your time and do not feed swords to the Screaming Antelopes, it’ll give them tummy-aches.
Amathul