It’s been another busy week overall – one that saw a slew of distractions: like a different settlement fought several Frogdogs, a visit to the Dark Vet for the Feline Entity, a broken TV and its replacement, a Glow-themed painting marathon and a Call of Cthulhu session – but here we are, finally with our first stab at a Frogdog Level 2. So lets jump (leap) right into (onto) things.

Settlement Event for the Lantern Year: the Dark Trader. He’s an old friend, who displayed large amounts of interest in my People of the Stars, which still to this day remains strange as I never really get around to buying anything from them ever. (In one of my very first settlements I went for the bit and bought the thong – but it just fell apart, maybe that is why they keep on coming around? Because they managed to sucker me into that one before?)

Next up on the list was innovating. We got a choice between Shrine and Ammonia from the deck. That was an easy pick for sure: Ammonia all day. I do like Shrine, I’ve said as much multiple times before, but at this stage, without an event that would just give us Ammonia as well, being able to craft leather will help a lot.

We then got our scheduled intermission by the Feline Entity as she almost bit a hole into one of my founding stones.

The lack of bones made deciding on gear a little difficult. And whilst I could have built a Leather Worker, I wouldn’t have been able to really do anything with it. And there was also the option to just finish of the 2nd rawhide set instead, together with a lope-bit and a scrap sword, which ultimately sounded much more enticing.

There was also the option to buy that thong.

I did not.

Ultimately I augured twice with Glow for +1 understanding and a survival, and I scavenged a broken lantern. Also if Calys came along this year, the Hooded Knight event would line up in a way for me to maybe get a new Twilight Sword for her.

So, loaded up on hope, I prepared the next group of hunter. The long hunt seemed especially daunting though. With an inkling of what to come, and nobody needing it, I left the stinky stuff at home.

The Hunters for this year were:
Calys (Frogdog bits, bone darts)
Sir Hermes (rawhide set, bone club)
Beni (lope bits, bone dagger)
Glow (rawhide set, scrap sword)

The Hunt-Phase is always something I strangely both dread and look forward too. I do love exploring the many different events possible, and with a late-game party especially, I relished in exploring them, but I just cannot shake that uneasiness that comes with rolling those dice. It’s always been a special kind of dread to me. Today, without being able sing our fears away, I really wasn’t looking forward to it.

The first area we discovered were Dry Lands (Basic HE20). Without a pickaxe we only suffered heat exhaustion, with Sir Hermes losing 4 survival for his troubles. We were off to a “great” start.
But as luck would have it we found ourselves on Wet Ground immediately, and with nobody rolling lower than an 8 – the marsh freely offered up its secrets to us: 3 omen! And Calys even gained +1 Movement for wading in so deep.
We then stumbled upon a Broken Lantern Oven (Basic HE35), that yielded its broken lantern to us, but we were not brave enough to investigate further. The Gorm’s Laughter (Basic HE57) we heard, might have had something to do with it. It followed us all the way to the Frogdog, taxing our sanity at every turn. The Soggy Prints of our quarry showed us we were still on the right track, but for how long? Calys investigated and fell, taking a heavy injury to the head.
Our second Overwhelming Darkness followed, thanks to that lope, and it looked bad at first, but I guess, it turned out quite manageable. Glow got PTSD (D), Beni made a crab spider friend, Sir Hermes got a -1 EVA-token and Calys a -1 ACC-token. Oh, if only we knew how to sing.
Finally, Beni ate a Skeletal Bloom and learned Feral Shout (FA) from it. Finally, we reached tha dowg.

The main difference from Level 1 to level 2, aside from the usual (more HP, more A-cards, +1 DMG +1SPD, more MOV and TGH) are A-farts added to the fart deck and the Mature trait. This new trait turns stink-tokens into damage at the start of the survivors round, essentially putting a slightly fluctuating timer on the fight.

With 14 cards in the deck (6A and 8B), the Frogdog began with a bread-and-butter-move: Dripping Backhand. It would hit Calys on 7+ and still managed to do so twice. She needed to dodge that hit to the head, as the monster loaded up its first fart.

At this point I took a moment to consider. As you may have spotted in the gear grids earlier, I brought along the remaining founding stone, the one that got almost punched through by the Feline Entity’s tooth. At this point I did not have any sort of hit location scouting, so any throw would be blind.. And I went for it. Worst case scenario would have been hitting the trap, but maybe we would debilitate it in some meaningful way..
It hit the milk sacks.
Yay and nay? The critical on that gives two (2) -1 TGH-tokens, but it also sent the dogpoles into a frenzy. Free leg-damage for every survivor starting their act adjacent to the monster. Yep. It felt like the fight had turned into a full-on damage race with that critical hit (we would be able to do some fancy dashing around to avoid the trigger though.) Of course still, at the time, I had been less than thrilled. ‘Horrid’ was the exact word I used in my notes.

Nothing to do but to unga-bunga onwards at this point. Sir Hermes surged and wounded promptly,
Calys took her turn bouncing from one mammoth leaves into position and sent the Frogdog running away as she cracked its toenail. Glow was the unfortunate one to get run over, but Beni encouraged her to not miss her go.
Undeterred she ran in, hitting and wounding once before the surge that would cut off a piece of the monsters tongue and injure the shoulder. A lot of good progress was being made. Beni followed in to the monster’s range as well, and even the dagger found its opening!
After all was said and done, we had dealt a whopping 7(!) wounds to the monster!

7 cards remaining: Carbunble Eruption. This was a mood that would make anybody attacking from the side zones stinky and give their attacks -3 ACC on top of that. It also triggered a basic attack towards Glow, of which she dodged the one hit.

We opened up the round by missing with our bone darts – a classic maneuver at this point – and having Sir Hermes jump in to hopefully go for the wound, but he failed on a 1.., this has the Frogdog in turn take to the sky with its mighty leap, taking Sir Hermes along for the ride.

This did open up the Heinous Origin for Glow though. She rushed in, attacked and despite only hitting once, she found the crit and uh.., a supple nose fell out of its butt? Frogdog anatomy is wild.
On top of that, the crit also discarded the mood that had just been put into play this turn. Naturally Glow surged once more and managed to find success with 2 more wounds! The unga-bunga was strong with us in this fight!

4 cards remaining: the monster drew Tongue Tied. Glow had picked up a stink token from a reflex last turn so she was the target. Taken for a ride, she was licked twice for 3 damage each. We dodged the painful hit the head and took the stink-damage to the body as we started our round.

Glow was picked up and she immediately dashed away from the monster whilst Sir Hermes stepped onto the closest mammoth leaf. Glow turned on her heels and went in for another attack. She failed the wound on the death blow, but scored one more wound elsewhere. At this point it felt like the trap should be just around the corner and I was really happy when her surge only hit once. She wounded the eye.

2 cards remaining. The Frogdog was back around to Carbuncle Eruption. Another basic from the dog, again targeting Glow and again hitting twice on 7+. We also, again, dodged the hit to head. The stink was already getting to us however, as both Glow and Beni got knocked down from the damage they took from it.

Surely Sir Hermes would be able to just jump in and finis-.., nope, a full-on miss on his part. Glow would be the sole MVP again at this rate, as she moved in (after getting picked up), she hit twice (yikes) and failed to wound one location whilst the other was impervious. Fearless (that’s doubtful)she surged and found 1 more hit! The trap was still MIA as she got that wound for the group.

0(1) cards remaining in the deck, the Frogdog was reduced to its basic action. It wanted to slap Beni real good, but with his last survival remaining, I was able to dodge one final time. We were safe for a moment, but only moments later, both Glow and Beni went down to stink-damage again!

Sir Hermes was in a position to swing, but he also missed again! 6 more cards remained in the hit location deck, just 1 more wound. Glow gathered her courage, prayed to the unga-bunga and hit once.. and wounded!

We did it! My first level 2 Frogdog! The race against the dogpoles made this even more tense than I had expected. Of course, having 5 survival limit and access to all survival actions (and Glow with both rawhide and thrill seeker (FA)) made this a lot easier. Looking back at it now, we did just cut up that poor beast, didn’t we? I feel like I am generally a little too careful when it comes to hunting level 2’s but I’ll chalk that up to not being that experienced in general.

As for the rewards we got: Calys (+1STR) aged again and we got loads of hide. These Frogdogs still remained utterly toothless and light on bones. Of course we also got the Bioluminescent Tonsils, so we would be able to build our first lure lantern and risk our arms for some sweet sweet copper from here on out. I’m also pretty certain that we were still missing the right stuff for that last bit of the Frogdog set.

This one took a bit to get out there. I did spend some of my time painting up all 4 minis for Glow, so I’ll try to get some half-decent pictures of her over the next few days. But this going to be all for now.

Thank you very much for your time and don’t drink that Frogdog milk,
Amathul