This time the grand plan is pretty much a Vanilla+ PotSun settlement.

I’ll try my best to remember to gain seed patterns for 3 understanding and we’ll be using character cards at my discretion. I should also have at least 1 indom resource for each of the 3 main quarries by the time we get to LVL3.

I also rolled for the Ringtail Vixen bookmark at this point, but we didn’t get the bookmark this time.

However… 10 additional people came staggering from the darkness, desperate and in need of companionship. As one, the group set out in search for a home. Drawn to the faint gleam of an unseen light, the 13 survivors found a warm pool of unknown qualities, yet still they drank from its waters and decided to settle down beneath the striking image of the big mouth of .. The Sun.

The Feline Entity was also showing a good amount of interest in the proceedings today. She was probably just as curious about this as I was.

After long deliberation and no really great ideas, the settlement was founded with the name Azure Pond.
We chose to be charming, obvious and functional.
Alissa was the one doing the deliberations, thus she gained +1 courage and Purpose (FA – giving her a chance to survive fatal bleed if other survivors are still alive).
After innovating Sun Language (one of the bigger differences to PotLantern: survivors do not gain access to Encourage, instead they learn Embolden, which has them gain a +1STR-token), she also gained +2 understanding as she pondered The Sun and the Sacred Pool beneath it.
Finally we adopted Survival of the Fittest as our Principle of New Life to finish the framework of our fledgling settlement.

The Sun is our stand in for the Lantern Hoard or the Tyrant’s Throne in this campaign. It gives us the ability to innovate and build the 3 basic production locations. Furthermore it gives us our 2 large limiters for this particular campaign:
No heavy armor!
And should we ever lose against a Nemesis monster the campaign is outright lost. It is worth mentioning that we do not fight against any nemesis before LY21!

The Sacred Pool on the other hand gives us both ways to spend endeavors and craft items. It is a settlement location with a level though and on level 1 we can only chose between 2 things:
Spend 1 endeavor to drink the (questionable) Sacred Water, which triggers Intimacy once per lantern year, or we may spend 2 endeavors to purify a survivor. They will not be able to depart that lantern year, but they will gain a mild disorder (Overprotective D) and a stat upgrade, typically +1STR or +1ACC, which potentially could be any stat of your choice if you roll well enough.

Moving on, after we updated our death count, I went ahead and picked Graves this time (gaining us endeavors for dead survivors opposed to resources and +1 understanding for newborns).
I rolled low which meant we would not get the +1LCK on a survivor, however all departing survivors would gain +1 survival and understanding this lantern year.
As it seemed that Alissa did not have to sit out this year (I re-read the event like 4 times), this would give us a survivor with 3 understanding! What a juicy alternative! And so early! And if we got really lucky, perhaps we could roll into Ammonia (I) whilst hunting the next few lions?

As we entered the develop step, I was definitely spending 2 of our 3 endeavors for both the Bone Smith and the Skinnery.
Whilst I really wanted to innovate as well, we had exactly 5 hide, and it felt foolish to not build that complete Rawhide Armor set. With the final endeavor I then build the Organ Grinder as well after all.

Following that, we continue to also make a Bone Blade, Bone Darts and – my favorite – a Bone Axe.
We save the Broken Lantern and Eye of Cat for later.

The Hunters:
Lionar – green (Founding Stone)
Alissa – blue (Rawhide Armor set, Bone Blade)
Calys – red (Bone Axe)
Granite – yellow (Bone Darts)

That turned out to be quite the good spread of gear as we prepared to set off to our first actual hunt.
Alissa had yet another moment of Insight and gained Tinker, sadly the roll ended up wasted (+1 card when innovating). But she did gain the pattern for Tempered Daggers. So that’s something, I guess?

This felt like a very strong starting point already.

The Huntphase:
As we left our settlement to search for sustenance, we soon found a sign of the White Lion hunting something else. The Prowling Lion seemed to be moving away from us, and worse yet, it might be battle ready once we find it.
Trying not to lose its trail, we could not afford to go around the Sea of Golden Grass and just had to press on. All survivors gained +1 courage for the daring deed and this did trigger Bold for Alissa (+1 understanding). Still we got slowed down as we lost our way and we had to circle back around the area.
On our detour we found a trail of blood leading to stone faces with Bloody Eyes (basic HE98). These in turn led us to an ornate box with a person inside. We didn’t quite understand his opinions and outlook on life, so we named him Squobble, because he was so strange, and sent him home to wait at the Sacred Pool for our return.
Pressing on, a gale of wind rushed over us and a booming voice spoke a Forbidden Word (basic HE66). All 4 survivors gained +1 understanding as our horizons widened. The brain damage did nothing against us at this point as the murals on the box earlier had been a much worse sight to behold.
And then I rolled an 11 and my heart almost stopped.
It was just a pile of Monster Droppings (basic HE11), luckily, and instead of giving them a taste, Lionar carefully studied the feces, gaining +1 understanding as he found an important clue to the monster’s whereabouts! We charged ahead and ambushed the White Lion!

Of course with Ground Fighting in play (because of Prowling Lion) that ambush wouldn’t do too much for us. Naturally we also drew Dead Monster from the terrain deck as well, tripling up on the effect.

We clearly stumbled on the aftermath of a fight here.
Presented with the element of surprise, Granite was ready to throw a Bone Dart as soon as we arrived. He hit the monster first try! And he even wounded! This discarded Ground Fighting and had the White Lion charge at him for a retaliatory basic attack. But before that.. brain trauma.. he got knocked down by New Perspective (+7ins) and the Lion descended on him with unbridled fury. Hitting him once in the body.
I might have oversold that a bit.
The Survivor Corpse only yielded a single insanity for Calys before she approached together with Lionar at her side.
Alissa activated her Rawhide Headband .. I was that nervous about brain damage .., and she put Power Swat on top for the monster to resolve next.

10 cards remaining, Power Swat was drawn – shocking – and targeted Alissa.
The Lion missed her on a 6+.

Granite got up and ran for the hills, his dart missing in the commotion. The time had come for Calys to move in. She hit the monster twice, potentially wounding on 3+, but that wasn’t good enough for her! She started off with a critical wound! Savage added a second wound on top of the regular wound for the crit.
And she even did it twice! Whilst savage triggers only once per attack, she still was able to hack off the Lion’s hand, gaining another +1STR for 1 of her survival!
Lionar took a turn to check the Dead Monster, but he found nothing useful left on the corpse.
Finally, Alissa attacked as well, dealing another wound.

6 cards left, the White Lion drew Claw. Going for Alissa yet again it hit once, and she took the 1 damage to her leg armor.

Lionar moved up into the blind spot and used Embolden to gain a +1STR-token for 1 survival before he attacked with Fist & Tooth – hitting once, he just about wounded!
This slap on the ass did send the Lion charging over Alissa.
Calys couldn’t quite follow quickly enough after that so she stopped in the Tall Grass, whilst Granite joined her his dart missing again.

5 cards remaining, Combo Claw! The White Lion wanted to turn, but its missing hand prevented the attack! And because Alissa was adjacent she gained yet another understanding from witnessing the monster’s despair and pain!

Calys was close enough to run up and attack, wounding on 2s already! Dealing one more wound, but she took priority target.
Alissa splurged by spending a survival for a +1STR-token, and I gleefully realized that her Rawhide Armor would get to roll on that because its a survival action! She hit the monster once and cracked its ribs for another regular wound!
Granite missed again and Lionar was just too far away still.

3 cards remaining, the White Lion shuffled its deck and put Ground Fighting back into play again – a cunning feint as it flopped onto its side! But would it be enough?

Granite missed again as the rest of the team backed off a little.
After another 3 missed darts the White Lion reflexively dashed away on a failed wound.
And it took yet 3 more misses before Granite managed to land another hit. Thankfully it wounded the monster that time.
Calys saw a chance to deal possibly lethal damage but she missed both her hits because she wasn’t paying attention anymore.
Trying to end this fight, Alissa went for it as well. She got her hits in at least but only wounded once despite hitting hard as well (3+).

1 card remaining, it’s Ground Fighting again!
At that point, all we had to do was wait on Granite. He hit it on the second dart, dealing a wound, killing it whilst the mood was still in play, before it would be discarded!

This lion never stood a chance!

Lionar (+1STR, f&t), Alissa (+1STR, sword) and Calys (+1ACC, axe) all aged from the fight. And.., what was going on with those rolls?! All 3 also gained 1 weapon proficiency.
Lastly we gained access to the Catarium and our resources.

Getting a bow going feels like something sensible to do with these resources.
This year was really REALLY easy, mainly because we had Bone Darts. Without a ranged option this fight would have been hell. So there is your PSA for the week: build Bone Darts year 1 against White Lion.

But this is getting ridiculous already. All these stat upgrades! Alissa is at 6 understanding! Calys had 7STR on an attack at some point during the fight as well. Tha heck!?

It’s just year 1 and just a White Lion Lvl1, but we did feel very powerful this year. I’m also clearly a luck-vampire when it comes to this game. When I’m playing with other people stuff just goes wrong, so far, the most ridiculous stuff happened when I played my copy for these posts. We’ll see how far this goes this time.

As an overall goal for the campaign – next to surviving for as long as possible – I want to go Phoenix hunting. It’s a fairly obvious thing to do, I guess, as its the only way to really get my hands on a Katana for a potential mastery user right now, but in general I just want to fight more birbs, I think.
Lope will likely also see some action as we can make use of that armor set.

On a more general side of things, I still want to try and post little write ups on my personal experience with the settlement locations and their gear, starting with the Bone Smith, as well as go for a look at the Frogdog expansion. That one would be more in the sense of a review, maybe? It’s only been a year, no big deal.
I’ve also steadily been painting. I finished my Tyrant, his PotStars survivors and 2 frogdog armor minis. I am working on the frogdog figures in particular as I am looking at a PotStars settlement being played on Saturdays for a bit in the upcoming weeks set to include the stinky menace.

#wheremygormat?

(Edit: it seems an error had been made as the EU warehouse is being moved currently, according to KDM support. Which they sorted out immediately, the support is always great!)

With that, I will retreat back into my cave to wait for my remaining packages to arrive.
As always, thank you very much for your time, and remember: there’s no use in arguing with your Sculptor-constellation-copy, they know what you are thinking,
Amathul & Luhtama