A new year begins in Bogstop between the Feline Entity’s rummaging and playful attacks, me making plans for another co-op settlement coming up in the near future and doing a little bit of painting on the side.

We rejoin the brave survivors after they have just avoided the more terrifying stenches a high level frogdog could possibly create, on their return home with their hard earned spoils in hand.
Looking back at it, Sir Hermes really didn’t do much of anything besides being present during that fight, did he? But, well, he was contributing to the 5 endeavors we’d gain, and maybe he could match-make this year. This would give us a chance to keep shield proficiency alive should anything unfortunate happen.. *foreshadowing*

But, as always, first the settlement event: Startling Barks!
Oh.
That is a death sentence for somebody.

Lelia, of all people, was the one chosen at random and well, she rolled a 6.. minus 14 hunt exp.., yep, as predicted, she was killed, her face a content smile.
Grumbling I noted her passing. I wanted her specifically to have a child this year to not lose too much of her progress towards the mastery on shield spec, but there you have it, she’s gone ahead and died. We did gain a monster bone and an omen for it. So it wasn’t all bad?

Onwards then to the develop phase. The one thing we did not get from that dog was its iron spine. But, I did forget to use my Scavenger Kit as I collected our rewards, so I went ahead and drew another Frogdog resource to have one more chance – its a mammary gland.
So here we are.. without any iron but 6+ copper and 3 of the 5 recipes for parts of the marchioness set.
I really should have picked count set pieces.
But it was too late for regrets like those. So it was probably high time to get a few bone pickaxes going. We did have loads of resources to work with and without iron or the tuskworks, I was kinda unsure what even to do with them anyway.

The settlement event also put an end to another part of my potential plans for the year – intimacy – besides losing Lelia to the event, having to pay 2 endeavors for face painting (or any art or education endeavor) also didn’t feel great with only 5 endeavors.
Especially as 1 endeavor was already reserved for leather making. So I quickly pivoted towards other plans. I would need 1 more lantern for scrap smelting so we could at least progress with the dragon set as much as I could.

With this cursory plan in place I re-activated Glow. And she turned out to be quite efficient, returning with a broken lantern in hand on the first attempt made. We also smelted it into iron with the other non-copper scrap we still had left in storage.
I then notice how tightly wound this plan still had been for us, Sir Hermes was still suffering from both squeamish (D) and eproctophilia (D) locking him out of hunting entirely, unable to depart both with and without stinky gear. So I attempted some brain surgery real quick with the 2 endeavors I had left, to have at least some margin for error.
Luckily Sir Hermes rolled a 4 on the table and was able to remove 1 disorder on the first attempt – I picked squeamish (D). His left eye drooping a little was a non-relevent side-effect.

Still left with 1 more endeavor I couldn’t help but think about innovating again. There were still a few innovations in the deck that would be very handy to have.
This year’s choice would be between Sacrifice or Symposium. A little late for Symposium, but sure show up now.
I didn’t want to press towards the Sacrifice strain (Carnage Worms), so Symposium had to be the pick if only for the additional Survival Limit.

With all endeavors done, it was time to build some new gear. First off: despite me wanting to hang on to copper, I would be using the most recent one to build a pair of Frogdoggles from the eye we got. I’ve not had any hit location scouting so far (partially actively avoiding it) and as the monsters grew more dangerous these would combo nicely with Wrath.
Up next: the iron I made was used for another piece of dragon armor. We were only missing the arms at that point.
I continued by building 2 bone pickaxes and a bone sickle.
And finally, after having had a look at both the effect and affinities, I build the seed pattern gear Spite Balm. Jerryn was the poor guy who got exploded – he gained Maladroit (D) from the concussion severe.
The rest of the resources got stashed for the time being – partially because I saw a decent risk of starvation in our future.

All in all I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by this settlement phase, but oh well.., you are never really able to do everything you wanted to.
This year’s quarry would be us trying to hunt a Screaming Antelope Lvl3 – partially because “when in doubt hunt a lope” still applied for most circumstances in the lives of survivors, and partially because I wanted to see what Wrath would do to it.
Going straight after a Bullfrogdog was tempting, but I wanted to wait until after the next set of nemesis encounters.

The chosen Hunters:
Beastia (f&t, frogdog set)
Glow (Wrath, leather set)
Sir Hermes (bone club, dragon armor bits)
Ragnar (lantern dagger, rawhide set)

We brought our Scavenger Kit, 2 pickaxes, and the lure lantern.

The Huntphase:
As always we began by noodling in the closest deepest pool, and as always we pulled out a copper at the cost of 2 bleed. This one was a bit of a dicey roll.., considering Sir Hermes losing an arm would have actually been quite bad as it would have prevented him from using his bone club going forward.
And as we were pondering how fortunate we had been just then, we were suddenly surrounded by A Carpet of Ticks! Some of the rolls were terrible, but thankfully even Glow’s 1 turned out to be enough with her 6 hunt xp.

Oh no.

The Harvester (basic HE10) burst from the ground right in front of us and we had no choice but to run by spending 1 survival each! Beastia (motion sickness D), Glow (monster panic D), Sir Hermes (eproctophilia D) and Ragnar (squeamish D), they all somehow survived. And after having checked 3 times, I was sure that they all were able to escape – none of our gear was noisy.
One heart attack and sudden outbreak of amnesia later we continued on. Ragnar had lost all survival from this though as he had both squeamish (D) and eproctophilia (D). Not another one.
As we moved on, we encountered a Stampede raging across the plains. I though I might have had a vague inkling what might have caused it. And of course we’d roll on the table. A 9. The showdown started immediately without us able to go mineral gathering. I came to conclusion to just pretend that we dodged both hemophobia and starvation that way. Luckily we did find an ore vein at the scene of the fight!

The Screaming Antelope Lvl3 adds 2 new cards to the fight in addition to the typical Indomitable.
Hypermetabolism is a trait that gives the lope a +1SPD-token every time it consumes anything. With Wrath in play, this might even help us kill it faster.
Legendary Horns on the other hand is a L trait that adds 4 +1TGH and 1 +1SPD-tokens to the monster. It also means survivors with less than 5 courage suffer brain damage when they end their act next to the monster. This is essentially 5 extra wounds on the first Wrath critical hit. The monster also only has 12TGH base, propped up mainly by this card. Otherwise it has an additional +1EVA-token.

22 cards in the deck, the Antelope began the fight by drawing Back Kick. With no targets in range it’ll eat an acanthus right off the bat, gaining another +1SPD-token. Diabolical also didn’t have a target, so it just charged straight ahead into the middle of our line.

Ragnar and Beastia would be on terrain duty for a bit as Glow and Sir Hermes were the ones to start the fight with the monster. First action of the encounter: Ragnar activated the ore vein with his pickaxe. On 2 dice he just rolled a combined 10, but even a single iron was still an iron. Beastia ran towards the acanthus and pumped her armor for a turn before Glow activated, her goggles revealing that she did not want to be in the blind spot. So she ran to its side instead. A hit on 8+ managed to wound the monster, but it wasn’t a crit just yet. And her surge failed even to hit! Before she could be affected by the monster’s horns she took a step to the side with the effect of her leather boots.
Closing out the round Sir Hermes attempted the unga-bunga as well. But he failed. Surging in a block, he braced for the antelope’s turn.

21 cards remaining. Crush and Devour came off the top. Oh no! The lope turned to Sir Hermes and opened its undermaw wide with 6 dice hitting on 3+. 5 hits. He vanished into the moist darkness.
But not without a fight! A 10 on masticated. Only a 6 on the follow up – 1 damage at each hit location for him. The lope charged into the corner with diabolical. And I was ready to panic as I always did when the lope ate a person.

Glow activated first. Scouting HL and AI, seeing the monster’s hunger coming up, she was just in range to run up to the blind spot. The swing with the sword hit just barely. But Wrath cleaned up the mess after all – she crit on a 9! The monster got knocked down by the hit location effect, it took its regular wound and then 7 more! 1 for each token! Also throwing up Sir Hermes (+1 insanity) in the midst of things! Glow wanted to capitalized on the momentum and surged before stepping away with her boots again. Another wound on a 5.

As the lope got up again, Beastia encouraged Sir Hermes before arriving at the acanthus. Picking the plant with an 8, Ragnar was inspired to do the same. Finally Sir Hermes attempted his revenge, hitting and wounding on a 4 before surging to block again.

11 cards remaining – the lope took a beating last turn but it wasn’t ready to give up just yet. It drew Run Down, charging at Glow, managing 3 hits for 3 damage each. Glow dodged the head hit, but got trampled over afterwards, somewhat evening out the incoming damage.

With his 6MOV Ragnar ran towards the upper acanthus plants, finding nothing on his first pull. Meanwhile Beastia positioned herself towards the bug patch and picked another fresh acanthus before yelling for Glow to get up. Glow got another peek at the the HL and AI cards coming up and engaged the monster. Getting double 1’s on 2 attacks! Sir Hermes dashed in after Glow had fled the spot, hit the monster, but rolled a 1 to wound! He needed to spend another survival to avoid the 3 arms damage from the Palate hit location as well before he was done though.

11 cards still remaining, the lope played Stomp and Snort. Ragnar was picked as the random target. And whilst he was shook by the sudden attention – he fell over but did not run away. Sir Hermes was the poor guy to then get trampled over, his arm armor gone.

Beastia started another turn by finding a Nightmare Tick before she encouraged Ragnar to keep going. He then pulled the final acanthus from the ground eating it hastily. Glow activated, hitting the monster’s Giant Teeth, wounding on a 2. Keeping the pressure up, she surged again, hitting on a 3 (thanks to blind spot, frogdoggles and the lost EVA) and crits the Restless Hoof! One more survival was spent to pick up Sir Hermes again, who dashed over to the monster’s side and unga-bunga-ed the beast for one more critical wound!

8 cards remaining, the monster drew Ram. Glow was the furthest threat in range, even if she was only a step away. Another 3 hits. She dodged 1 hit to the body, but suffered a heavy wound to her waist nonetheless. It then trampled over Sir Hermes, knocking him away as it came to a stop in the corner.

Ragnar got up and was finally ready to move towards the fight. He dashed the last few steps, reaching the blind spot and hitting the monster once, wounding once, in a flurry of blows. Yet the reflex almost ruined him, having to even eat the fresh acanthus to stave off a severe injury. Still, he spent his +1STR-Token to surge (from Sir Hermes’ Red Fist SFA), hitting one more time, but utterly failing the wound. Glow is then encouraged by Bestia and her frogdoggles revealed the lope was going to fall over. Might as well let it, I figured.

7 cards remaining, Back Kick was drawn once again but its hoof was destroyed by the one persistent injury! It flailed and fell over, ending its turn!

Beastia took the opportunity to move up as Ragnar activated. He was hellbent on attacking, hitting the monster’s Big Mouth as calamity struck! The wound failed pathetically and the lope ate the lantern dagger whole! As Ragnar backed off, weaponless with a bruised ego, Glow saw the trap on top of the deck. Sir Hermes dashed in, and attempted to trigger it, but missed his attack.

7 cards remaining, Chow down was drawn. The monster’s basic attack got turned into graze and it just ended up running up to trample Glow.

After some consideration Sir Hermes decided to spend his +1STR-Token to encourage Glow so she could spend her token to dash out of the way. Ragnar moved in afterwards and tried his best with fist and tooth on the attack. A lucky hit with a lantern 10 got the job done and he successfully triggered the trap. The sanity loss triggered a Brain Trauma and he got lunacy on the roll. Happily I drew the disorder to replace squeamish (D) with.., and it was vestiphobia (D), forcing him to rip up his rawhide chest and with it the set bonus.
Not missing a beat Glow appeared at the monster’s back and hit another crit! Beastia moved up and continued to just pump her armor as if to taunt Ragnar, whilst Sir Hermes moved and blocked.

6 cards remaining, Run Down came from the top of the deck again. The lope took off running forward as Glow used her last survival to dash away. Which left her out of range 12. Oops. This meant the lope wouldn’t find a target anymore and instead it grazed, running forward yet again. Diabolical also ended up without a target as it rushed towards a corner, sliding along the wall in front.

We ended up so far away that we had no choice but to spend the next turn just moving around trying to find a good position.

6 cards remaining, Stomp and Snort also found no target and turned into graze, so it moved along the side of the board again, gliding towards us (in a bit of a meta move), before it finally spotted Sir Hermes for its diabolical.

The monster stopping mere inches before his face, Sir Hermes gladly took the the opportunity he was presented with and swung wide, hitting and wounding the lope! Glow also carved another pelt from the beast before the turn was done. Beastia reached 10 armor in each hit location with her armor pumping, but she and Ragnar were still too far away to contribute.

4 cards remaining, Back Kick! The monster got knocked down again!

Sir Hermes took aim and swung again, wounding the beast before it also bounded away with a reflex!

3 cards remaining, Stomp and Snort again. Sir Hermes was the target this time. Whilst he did not fall over either he was insane and did run away a bit though. The monster’s diabolical had it running back over to Sir Hermes, somewhat keeping pace.

Too far away again, we just shuffled around the board with Glow activating first once again seeing Back Kick on top of the monster’s deck. I did not want to wound this AI card off if I could help it, so I passed my turn, letting the monster knock it self over one more time.

3 cards remaining, Back Kick was drawn – as has been foretold – and the monster fell over.

Sir Hermes activated first this time, and swungs into the reflex. He successfully wounded but got pummeled by 3 hits on 3+ in return. His body armor was carved away but he remained stalwart. With Glow up next she quickly converted a perfect hit into another crit!
Beastia has somehow managed to find a position to unleash her ridiculous 11 armor knockback attack with the frogdog set. Rushing in, she activated her fist and tooth attack with +11STR.
But landed no hits despite the spectacle.

1 card remaining, and it was.. Stomp and Snort. Sadly we did not get lucky with the Back Kick as a last card, but we’ll be fine. Random target was Ragnar. Horror gripped him this time, knocking him over just before the monster trampled over Sir Hermes yet again. A light wound was dealt to his legs.

Glow activated first. She ran into the blind spot knowing what she would hit. On a 3+ she struck the teeth and dealt one more critical hit them with a 6! Bare minimum.. BUT.. the weapon archived the -1 MOV token it had gained from the previous wound and the lope was finally killed!

Why does it feel like the unga-bunga almost failed me?

Besides getting beat up all around (mostly on reactions or traits and aside from Beastia who hardly took part in the fight at all) we also suffered noticeably economical damage by losing the lantern dagger to the maw. I should have known better when I made that attack, but risking Wrath wasn’t an option either. At least the rawhide chest piece doesn’t really matter(there is at least 1 more back home, might even be 2). But after that fight – which took quite long – it feels like it was the right call to not to go after the bullfrogdog just yet

Time to collect our hard fought rewards.

Beastia (Armored Fist FA) was the only one who aged and and she got a very good boon for her in particular as she also picked F+T spec. And Glow gained Sword Specialist off the weapon experience.

I also drew an additional basic resource with the Scavenger Kit – we need those lanterns for more iron!
But we got a perfect hide instead.

The fight started out very well for us, but unga bunga only barely protected us today. Whilst we did not take any severe injuries – lucky us – most of the armor of people actually participating in the fight had been stripped off.
And I definitely need to cool it on the survival expenditure in these prolonged fights. An obvious realization, sure, but sometimes the old mmo ways push their way through – the best cc is a dead monster.

Next year we are going to get visited by KillyB, which is going to be an interesting fight as well. And it is definitely going to be the Killennium Butcher as I do not want to risk my precious copper at this stage. If stuff goes really wrong, I’d rather have to miss out on endeavors for a year at this stage.

With Ragnar taken out of the fight for several reasons – no weapon / eproctophilia + squeamish deadlock – I am going to have to look into building a new A-team anyway. But would I even want to send them out to a nemesis?

So far so good, we made it to the half-way mark of the campaign – next milestone to reach would be the Watcher at two thirds.

As always, thank you for your time and unga bunga protects,
Amathul