At this point I’ve tried stalling this out long enough. I’ll just go ahead and apologize for it as well. I had intended to get a quick post up about my recent purchases in between, but with the items shipping from the EU warehouse and the delivery company being extra slow as well, it just didn’t pan out how I wanted it to and I wasted my time waiting when I could have posted this a lot earlier.
(Hopefully complaining to the aether helps. It did the trick before.
Edit: Yup, about 12 hours later… it did help. I got my new stuff!)

Aside from that, I’ve been prepping my entry for the official Expansions of Death painting contest – with only the worst bit still left to do… taking a decent picture of it (or rather 3).
I also got to play another 3 Lantern Years with the PotStars settlement we have going on the side, and we got out first 2 People of the Stars – one blessed by Absolute, one by the Gambler. But as I should be focusing on Bogstop for now I’ll stop it here. There is a jellyfish in the room that needs to be dealt with, and deal with it we shall.

It was clear for a bit that this was going to be a big year. Mostly because we would be finding out whether or not we were allowed to continue.
Whilst in all likelihood we should be fine, with a trained Twilight Sword in our midst, but we would know soon enough for sure.

But first – we needed to get back to the settlement!

With 5 endeavors we headed into the singular random event. And it turned out to be an old friend! The Dark Trader!
Whilst the people of Bogstop had not met the Dark Trader before, they (it?) was an avid supporter of my People of the Stars – visiting a total of 7 times during that single campaign.
And whilst in other campaigns they (it?) typically old sold junk so far, this time we might also actually buy something with our left over bits. The campaign might end this year – so might as well go and get eaten whilst wearing a fabulous thong..

With all the pleasantries out of the way we got done welcoming the guest and got to the important stuff – building the rest of our Bullfrogdog Armor Set. We still needed the helm and pants/dress (though we could have substituted the Bullfrog Helm with the frogdog helm gasmask). So we began by assigning 1 endeavor to leather making.
The Bullfrogdog Armor is amazing at using weapons that are hard to hit with, using the ability Focus Charge for move and act, you full move forward in a straight line and activate a weapon gaining +1ACC for each space travelled. This more or less means the weapons from the same location rely fully on this ability (with their low ACC stats all around), but most of them seem well worth it – largely due to the Onslaught keyword, which doubles your wound-attempt-total if all made attacks hit – a dream come true for any Club Master!
I would have liked to build the copper shield (auto-deflect when the armor ability is used) or lantern (reduces your SPD), but with the resources we got we were stuck with either the halberd or club. We could have built either, but as I picked the Ironclad Spine after the last fight (with Ultimate Weapon) so I would be able to build this club, and I felt that I should stick to that plan. The required copper for either was set to come from the Coated Femur (IR) we were holding in storage.

There was still 1 Prime Tusk left in storage afterwards, so should I revisit the Bullfrogdog with this settlement, we might still be able to build that shield.

With this first big project of the settlement completed we were able to move on to the Marchioness set.
Which we immediately got going by building the Marchioness Trousers. Building the Blouse would be the next easiest, at only 2 iron, but if we managed to get 1 more scrap we could smelt a third iron, giving us potential access to the Gorget or Gloves as well.
There was also the option of building the Grimacing Guillotine but I held off, feeling we had plenty of powerful weapons available for the time being. So we went ahead and slapped together 4 more leather from both storage and the last hunt and we got to crafting.
With 2 pieces built, we only needed just another 10 more iron to get that full set.

As the settlement lumbered on towards its destiny, we innovated one more time. Maybe we could get our hands on Pottery after all.
“Nope”, said the game and threw up these 4 cards instead:
Heart Flute, Pictograph, Sacrifice or Scarification.
From those 4 I picked Pictograph. Not what I wanted, but it’s what I got. There are a few nice interactions with events that we could get later on, if nothing else.

After the innovate were left with 5 more bones, 4 Dark Water and a bunch of cooking ingredients so… who would be the lucky(?) one to buy that thong?
The easiest thing to justify to purchase from the Dark Trader‘s inventory has always been the pink stone for me.
Ruby took her chances and attempted to buy a Founding Stone, yet she returned with something magical instead. She gained Immortal (D) from the strangely glowing pebble. Task failed successfully?

After a lot of deliberation I nominated Celestine to be the one to roll the dice on the fancy underwear – the Shiny Sexy Jeweled Thong. And like a lot of things this campaign, this was another ridiculous roll.
It’s the real thing!
+1LCK for Celestine!! This was the first time this has worked out for me (from 4 attempts).

After a quick trip to the Shrine: 8 – +1 armor, may or may not be helpful we had two more things left to do this year.

First off – we still had a Love Juice we could use.
Being very safe, we activated Founder’s Eye on Face Painting before Calys and errr.., Thalas got to business.
On our 2 dice we got a 5 after the bonus as the lower number, so a singular child with Axe (2) – Cairne Axtolotl (+1ACC ) – was added to the settlement.
He also gained one more endeavor from his immediate insight roll.

Finally, in a ritualistic fashion, now that the settlement had been blessed with a strong newborn (ready to face the great devourer already), Milton, our Mere Navi uses the Gilled Fungus we had gathered from the Bullfrogdog-carcass to utter a prophesy of approaching darkness!
We archive the resource and made note of a persistent +1 insanity departing bonus for our settlement.

This years challengers would face the greatest obstacle of all .. potential oblivion. Or.., well.., to be fair.., its not an obstacle but a consequence, really. The obstacle is the TGH 21 and the 2 traps.

The set up I came up with in the end wasn’t ideal for Wrath, but the most important person in this fight was Selen by a long shot.

The initial group of fighters:
Selen (Twilight Sword, leather armor)
Ghurt (Wrath, Dragon Armor)
Cairne (lantern glaive, frogdog armor)
Celestine (Bullfrog Mace, Bullfrogdog Armor)

I wanted to use the Marchioness patch work stuff for the Twilight Sword at first (so I could use my painted SoD1 Marchioness-mini and win this in style), but ultimately decided being immune to bash might just be a little more valuable at this stage in the game.

The Watcher is the Core monster of any People of the Lantern campaign, and thus will serve as a major point of interest for your game.
Having slumbered under the towering Lantern Hoard up until this point it has slowly been waking ever since our arrival, readying itself to devour all we have created and the knowledge we have gathered before setting out into the darkness to hibernate elsewhere for another eon.
It is meant to both serve as our unknowing patron, shielding us from predators with its intense aura (plus its also our spark of innovation on a more arcane side of things) as well as one of the pinnacle tests the settlement has to face.
Much like any of the nemesis encounters the settlement faces, the Watcher is a measuring stick to see if we are indeed tall enough to go onto this ride.

On a mechanical side it has a few tricks.. under its.. hood, like infinite MOV, 2 traps, Indomitable and the Life trait card set to 15. Its TGH also scales with the current Lantern Year – which in our case would be 21.
It also starts with 3 other traits in play.
Vapor of Nothingness emphasizes the ethereal nature of the creature, dealing 1 brain damage and 1 direct damage to a survivor’s head hit location (i.e. ignoring all armor) whenever it collides with any.
Lantern Vortex has all survivors within 2 spaces of the monster suffer bash before it uses a basic attack.
And Audience which is one of up to three helping effects survivors get/can gather. It adds the keyword Embolden, which allows us to send survivors into the fight under certain circumstances should we have suffered a casualty by then.
Retinue and the Twilight Sword are the other two big beneficial effects influencing this fight. A strong Twilight Sword user can kill the the Watcher in as little as 5 hits as the weapon deals 3 wounds instead of 1 specifically to Watchers each time you can slip past its defenses, whilst Retinue adds the ability to summon blocks of 9 survivors to help out in the fight. They get scattered very easily though, potentially killing 4 people from the settlement each time this happens. However, a Retinue also add 6STR to any adjacent survivor, making wounding the monster very easy with the right positioning. Turns out, under these circumstances, 21TGH isn’t really that big a deal.

With that, Selen’s big day had finally come. With the survivors going first, in an ideal world, we would be dashing her in with 2 retinues at her back, killing the monster in 5 quick hits before it would be able to act in any meaningful capacity.
(I’ve not killed enough Watcher’s yet to yearn for more of a challenge then that.)
There were a handful of things that could go wrong with this plan to be fair, but I just banked on us being able to power through whatever was left with Wrath and our new Bullfrogdog Armor should Selen die in an untimely manner.

The Feline Entity, present, this would be the time to do it – so, let’s get to it.

Cairne activated first to summon a retinue next to Selen, further moving it into position next to the monster. He also pumped up his armor and moved a few steps to not be in anybody’s way. Selen activated next. Her Frogdoggles showed us a glimpse of an unfortunate future though, one that would move the monster away from her.
There might be a good chance for her to surge still, so Selen moved up a little and let Celestine go next instead of engaging the monster at this point herself.

Celestine, invigorated by her new armor set (and her comfy 11 armor at each spot) dashed towards the upper edge of the board, from where she could charge towards the monster with her armor’s ability. She hit the monster twice with her Onslaught weapon and immediately drew one of the traps.
She was hit 3 times (triple 8!), the 4th attack gaining her a little extra armor in return from her Mage’s Hood just before she was flung back across the open board straight to its edge.

Ghurt was encouraged (he was knocked over by the trap) and he summoned a retinue of his own, setting up a lane for Selen to attack in. She dashed into the monster’s blind spot and saw her destiny unfold before her. With nothing left to do but hope – she attacked. She only hit the Watcher twice (with 3SPD on 2+) and wounded on 2+ (9STR from the sword + 12 from the retinues and 1 from her). She wounded both the Void Nerve Mask, dealing 3 damage to the monster and the Hydrostatic Fluids, dealing another 3 damage as she took a Bleed token in return.

9 Life remaining, the Watcher began its turn by activating Lantern Vortex. The two Retinues were immune to bash and Selen had a complete leather set, thus she ignored that part of the trait. Everybody else was far enough away to be out of range.
During the flow on the trait, Selen surged, just before the basic attack would have gone off.
She scored 3 hits on 3+. The first attack wounded the Void Light, forcing her to take 3 brain damage (12 insanity down to 9) and a second bleeding token for the 3 damage she deals. Luckily the Watcher was already in the center of the board, so it did not move away from her.

The second and third hit had the same wound reaction, both potentially devastating for the retinues – as the reactions would deal brain damage to them, potentially destroying them. We would need to deal a critical wound on our first hit to avoid this.
I chucked the dice blindly onto the board and it bumped into the Life trait! It stopped on a Lantern 10! Divine intervention!
Celestine quickly regained the spent survival and rolled again – a final time – to deal the last 3 wounds on a 6!
As the monster deflated in to a heap of black cloth, my nervousness finally eased off.

Yup, that’s it. .. For the fight at least.

All my fights against Watchers so far have been quick and brutal affairs, going both ways – either the Vorpal blade did its thing or the Jabberwocky ran rampant. This time it might have been a slightly iffy turn 1, but ultimately, to the extent of my knowledge at least: this was what a trained up Twilight Sword should do to a Watcher.
For now we were allowed to continue on, faced not with rewards but with a new bunch of problems to deal with from this moment forward.

Defeating the Watcher we felt some triumph as all living survivors gained +1STR! But only a heartbeat later we are plunged into darkness by the event: Blackout.
Our main reward, turns out, is that we can keep playing.

As instructed we replaced the Lantern Hoard with the Exhausted Lantern Hoard.

As all the lanterns in the settlement were snuffed out, our Barbaric Spirit faltered and we lost our Ultimate Weapon (I) in the face of utter hopelessness. But even so, we would remain! Spirits rekindled, the settlement gained Destiny instead, unlocking our final survival action, Endure (spend 7-LCK survival to ignore a severe injury before rolling for a result).The Exhausted Lantern Hoard further meant that we were no longer able to innovate (which we did plenty however, even if we never got to pottery) and that we were limited to only hunt Lvl3 monsters from now on.
All that not enough, we also had to take lanterns onto the hunt from this point onwards. So far we didn’t have any stellar, or well, useful support lanterns (besides Hollow’s Lantern), but we will just have to make due.

Being the resourceful tribe that we were, if we manage to scrounge the resources together, in future, we will be able to use the Watcher’s corpse to oxidize some of the best gear in the core game (like the Lantern Glaive) generally making them even better.

Lastly, gaining the Final Lantern we also learned of Lantern Research, offering us the ability to make use of the Watcher’s lingering flickers of life to grant us bursts of strength or hidden potential.

With all that added to the settlement we have officially made it into the final third of the campaign. Selen can now officially retire, or move on to become a wandering Twilight Knight of her own if she so desires.
We will continue Bogstop next Lantern Year with a regular hunt! The final Butcher encounter is not too far off either though, quickly followed by the last showdown with the Black Knight as well.

I’m not quite sure if I like the Watcher fight at this point, but I can say that I both like the idea and presentation of the primary Core monster Kingdom Death: Monster throws at its player base.
I would consider the Twilight Sword mainly a narrative device and whilst I do find the returning Hooded Knight a little annoying it does exactly what it needs to if you can manage to get a point or two of proficiency onto the designated knight in training.

And, I just remembered – after re-reading a few of the keywords the other day – mainly cursed – there is an argument to be made that the Antelope couldn’t actually eat the Twilight Sword, much like you could also argue that the Sleeping Virus Flower cannot be burned.
The Rule of Death (do what’s worse for you) has been cited in regards to both of these cases – but I would say just go for the vibes with this one. Pick what makes more sense to you in the given moment, or what is more “fun” for you or your group of players.
Looking back at the events unfolding in prior Lantern Years – I do like how I had to try and get a second sword from the Hooded Knight, only to find one in a dream. So I don’t think I would want to play it any other way.

But back to Bogstop for a few more moments.
The people of this settlement prevail for a little while longer. With the Watcher dealt with, the only thing that could end our campaign before Lantern Year 30 would be a total settlement wipe-out. So it is fairly safe to assume we can make it all the way to the GSK and attempt to put a dent into that sculpted mustache. At the very least our chances have gone up significantly.
I’m writing this as if I didn’t have Wrath and a full Bullfrog Armor in town ready to unga-bunga a level 3 monster to bits.

Anyways.., as always, thank you very much for your time, there is always shelter in the lantern’s light,
Amathul