We are finally back in the settlement. We finally made it back to the Frostkrafter. I was not entirely sure where all this black liquid came from, but that was one hell of a messy Frogdog fight…

But onwards to more important things! I did not waste any more time time and just quickly built the Frogdog Vest. The set had finally been finished! That took a while, didn’t it? Now, just don’t draw Vestiphobia (D)…

Next up on the list would be innovating. The hunt for Song of the Brave continued as I spent the endeavor and 3 resources. This year’s draws were: Partnership and Clan of Death. Oh, wow. That was never a choice to begin with. I picked Clan of Death, obviously, strengthening all future members of the settlement significantly.

With innovating done, I still had enough resources to build a few items from the leather set, we could tutor Glow for her second pattern or even veer off into a totally different direction entirely. With only 3 endeavors in total thanks to PTSD (D) needing to be cured we had to be selective about what we wanted to do.
Ultimately I spent 1 endeavor to make leather and build a Leather Cuirass from it, whilst the last endeavor got used to build the Barber Surgeon.

And as I took a break for bit at this point, I had a lot of time to think about what else I wanted to do. So, as I came back, my plans had shifted a little bit and whilst I had kept a Perfect Hide in settlement storage before, I had, at this point, decided we would be spending it to make a Scavenger Kit. Getting an additional resource from defeating a monster should be way better than sitting on the perfect hide for a single Glow-item.
I also went hog-wild and just used the love juice we still had in storage.
Rolling a 7 and a 1 we were looking at catastrophe, but one reroll later it was up to 7 and 7, so Mars was born almost without complications – the first member of the settlement getting the Clan of Death bonuses (+1ACC, +1STR, +1EVA).
(At this point I forgot about the effects of Family – and with Jerryn as Mars’ father, he should be inheriting Sword Specialization and 1 point of experience with it. I do notice later on, but take a penalty for forgetting about it.)

Most of the settlement’s main group of survivors was forced to sit out the next hunt due to recent events and PTSD (D), so a group of (mostly) new characters was assembled that would not be missed too much if something terrible happened to them.
It was only at this point that I settled on hunting a Dragon King Lvl1 next – our first node 3 fight. I did also want to fight a Dung Beetle Knight not too far into the future and I was considering it for a while for this year as well, but something about it felt.. off. Like I would just get pummeled and smushed to bits by the bettle. And whilst this would technically be my first time I hunted a Dragon King, I fought against it in the finale of the People of the Stars campaign before, so it felt at least a little familiar.

The chosen Hunters:
Selen (frogdog set, spiked buckler)
Lucille (leather bits, first&tooth)
Thalas (rawhide set, bone club)
Mars (rawhide set, scrap sword)

Huntphase:
We began the hunt by noodling. Mars was the one carrying the lure lantern so he plunged his arm fearlessly into the dark depths of a pool of water, reaching into a fish, pulling out the precious copper like it was nothing.

Surely this would be a quick, unproblematic hunt – it was only 4 events we needed to deal with!
The first of which being Thespian Troupe with their strange rickshaw, pulled by a huge man with a lion mask, we refuse to enter the strange vehicle and instead, on the path ahead Thalas suffered a bout of Sudden Madness (Basic HE32). He did hold it together, luckily.
Moving on we meet a Cloaked Stranger (Basic HE96). The creature seems to be floating, laughing at Mars. He was left shaken – 3 brain damage dealt – but that could have been a lot worse – and a lot better.
More strange happenings were afoot on the way ahead as we saw an Ornate Temple ahead of us, but just as we were about to reach it, it vanished, reappearing far behind us. This left Selen with a Nightmare (Basic HE41) about fighting the Dragon King. In this dream she used a Twilight Sword to slaughter the beast, one which she still held tightly upon waking up. It seemed like the game offered me a second chance at training a sword user.
We were closing in on our quarry as suddenly the ground gave way for a Lava Flow! Careful jumps (and decent rolling) took us across the molten rock and to safety but we had to still deal with yet one more event. As Thalas was suddenly almost speared by a bolt of Frozen Lightning (Basic HE61)! It exploded on the ground next to him dealing 3 damage to both his legs and waist, leaving him lightly wounded in each.

The Dragon King is a huge monster on a 4×4 base. A nuclear-powered bio-mech-dragon, it only has the same two traits on level 1 and 2 – Irradiate and Unseen Agony.
Irradiate usually is activated by AI and HL cards and gives the monster a -1TGH-token. Yes. Minus 1 toughness. When it has or more of these it will perform Meltdown – a event in its book – which can be as bad as it sounds. If it has less than 5 after a token is added, it instead activates the other trait, Unseen Agony.
Unseen Agony deals 1 damage per -1TGH-token on the monster to monster level hit locations in a 3 tile radius. Whilst the monster gets easier to wound the longer the fight goes, this represents a large amount of passive damage coming in ever so often.

12 cards in the deck, the massive Dragon King draws its first card. I could not help but feel a bit nervous. The Stuff of Nightmares – starting off with an advanced AI card – targeting Lucille – this attack would deal damage equal to the target’s insanity.
The Dragon King hit twice and whilst Lucille dodged 1 of these hits, she still took a 6-damage-hit to the waist, immediately giving her a heavy wound! What a start!

The monster out of reach for him, Thalas moved in closer and encouraged Lucille. She repositioned and attempted her first attack. Due to F&T’s low accuracy she missed twice before surging. At least that gave her 1 hit. Thanks to Acid Palms and the +1D10 it adds to F&T she wounded the monster easily before she got knocked away.

The reaction on that wound put down 2 additional lava flows, further limiting our ability to move around but also moved it in such a way that Mars found himself in the monster’s blind spot. Of course he started swinging without delay.
He managed to hit twice – the first triggering Irradiate as he wounded – damaging his legs for 1 in return, and as he barely missed the crit (8+) on the second hit, he got flung into one of the corner of the showdown board.

Selen then moved up, using her Frogdog Vest to add 1 armor to each spot she was wearing armor in.
Edit: To acknowledge my mistake – this is a pretty big misplay, the Frogdog Vest gives 1 armor to “a space wearing armor”. This mistake will be present throughout this campaign.
I’ll start saying this here as well. I can’t read.

9 cards remaining, one -1TGH-token, the Dragon King drew Lordly Roar. Once again it targeted Lucille. Taking 4 brain damage immediately, she rolled against the attack with little hope of success. With only 2 courage she would need a perfect 10. And she rolled a 9. Whilst ‘almost’ wasn’t good enough, it still surprised me. Lucille suffered the Flee brain trauma and ran straight into the stone column behind her.

Mars saw an opportunity and dashed in. Hitting twice, the first strike landed true and dealt a critical hit to the monster’s perfect smile, not only gaining us the King’s Tongue resource, but also putting a -1DMG counter on the monster!
A second wound follows, putting down another -1TGH, but without triggering irradiate.
Selen moved up closer and blocked to be safe, whilst Thalas picked up Lucille again and both approached.

7 cards remaining, two -1TGH-tokens, Blast Zone was drawn.
This was a static attack that tried to get as many survivors as possible into a zone, but try as it might, it would only hit 1 of us. So, Mars was picked and before the attack went off, he dashed out of the zone.

Mars began the survivor’s turn by attacking once again. 2 more hits. Hitting another critical hit on 8+, the first wound removed all -1TGH tokens from the monster (I am showing the wrong type of token in the pictures for a turn or two, but I did notice). In turn, the second hit also wounded, triggering a wave of irradiated pain hitting 3 people. Luckily only for 1 damage.

Selen had an opportunity to swing with the Twilight Sword, but she missed, whilst Thalas did the same with the bone club and also missed. His rawhide set also seemed to not be working for him at all. He was down to 2 survival already. Lucille moved up a bit more, but did not want to dash just yet. And finally Mars surged to maybe get another wound in, but no. Not even a hit.

5 cards remaining, one -1TGH-token, the monster drew Molten Strike. Selen is targeted because of her high armor values. It landed 1 hit for 1 damage before triggering irradiate. In an attempt at being safe, Thalas dashed out of the radiation wave’s range.

This was the point when I started to worry a little about how much armor my survivors were wearing. Selen took her chances and swung the Twilight Sword again. The dragon came to her, might as well make use of the situation.
She hit another irradiate trigger, but at least wounded, before she and Mars both got knocked down from taking heavy wounds after the 3 damage radiation wave.

Lucille encouraged Mars, who jumped into action and struck! Another critical hit was dealt, one that gained us a King’s Claw resource and set the dragon up for its first meltdown. In response I attempted to back off and reposition a bit. Selen also surged in an armor pump.

3 cards remaining, four -1TGH-tokens, Nuclear Blast got drawn again. The monster turned to Selen and Thalas, who both dashed to safety before any damage was dealt.

Lucille moved up closer to the side of the monster, whilst Mars moved out of the blind spot before Thalas could act as the meltdown would also hit there. Standing next to the monster, Thalas swung the bone club, but the light was blinding as the monster’s meltdown was indeed triggered.
Selen got caught in the blast, taking the damage to the head, but that was still nothing a dried acanthus couldn’t fix. However, her arms were steaming, cooking you might say and her muscles ultimately ruptured (can’t use fighting arts).

As all the lava pools cooled into obsidian pillars, Mars dashed in again to strike, but as his wound fails he just gets pushed back again. Lucille, last one able to still dash also went for it, desperately try to add one more wound. It took everything but it was a success!

2 cards remaining, Stuff of Nightmares came up again. Not what I wanted to see. With 3 possible targets to go after, it randomly chose Selen. She surged in a block with her last survival. Two hits for 5 damage each get dealt as she cancels one of them.
Why surge instead of dodge? To get a chance to have the shield retaliate. It did not work out though.

We began the turn by having Thalas attack one of the pillars. A 16! We gained an Iron (SR) and he a permanent +1STR from that! Wow!
Mars moved closer as Selen backed off, blocking.
Lucille however was ready to be done with this fight. She turned feral and started attacking wildly. 2 misses on her first swing, but she would surge as well. 1 hit and its the trap. The Stars must have been calling her name as the Dragon King’s singular hit sends her soaring straight upwards.

2 cards remaining, one -1TGH-token, Stuff of Nightmares was drawn yet again! This time the monster attacked Thalas with it. Trying to avoid the 3 damage, he used his last survival to dodge.

Seconds later, Lucille hit the floor next to the monster. Her hip took the damage, it’s a severe. She rolled a 2… we rerolled into a 1. She died, crushed by the force of the impact.

Thalas had originally wanted to go on pillar duty, but now the urge to attack was stronger, especially with the dragon right next to him. He hit twice and dealt a critical wound to Serpent Tail. The second hit failed though and triggered irradiate once more. Thalas’ legs almost withered out underneath him, but the acanthus prevented that.
Could Mars maybe end this? He had been carrying so hard with his criticals so far. He hits twice more – a crit on the throat – meltdown would damage the monster now as well. The potential final blow failed though.
With his last survival, he surged – one more hit turned into one more crit! And as he cut off a piece of wing, the Dragon King collapsed!

In the aftermath Thalas (Giant’s Blood FA) aged as all three people gained their weapon proficiency. This is also the point when I noticed that Mars should have had sword proficiency 1. He got sword added to his character card but only took the 1 point gained from this fight.
Also if I could manage to gain a couple of additional levels on Selen with the Twilight Sword, Calys might be officially off sword-duty now.

It’s a real shame about Lucille though. Losing both Acid Palms and our one tinker that we had in one go like that.
But to be fair, I’m sure I used up all my luck for the day in the fight with Mars. Whilst he was hitting that critical on 8+, it felt fairly consistent.

We also gain our rewards and the Dragon Armory settlement location.

We’ll have to see what we can build with that next time.

And to round out the day, just before I could pack the Dragon away again, the Feline Entity showed up, picking a fight with the Dragon King rule book.

That’s about it. Black Friday is going to be upon us soon – a little more than a week as of writing this, and I am looking forward to the update, releases and what discounts we are looking at.

Should you be interested in what I am looking at getting this year. It will largely depend on how much of a discount the GCE will get, if we were looking at $200-250 I’d be jumping on that. But as a lot of people have expressed on discord, that much of a discount is fairly unrealistic.
In terms of expansions I do really want the Sunstalker and/or Lion God, but I might be swayed by the offerings on Backer Kit. Red Witches and Screaming God are high up on my personal list of ‘want’, whilst this might also be the final chance to get Campaigns of Death for cheap.
Otherwise I am looking at getting a 2nd rulebook, some stone face bases (love these) and maybe an additional set of lantern armor survivors.
And then there’s also potential new releases, but I don’t feel able to speculate on those.

As always, thank you very much for your time and don’t get ruined by nostalgia,
Amathul