This year is going to be a quick one. But that gives me a little extra time to address a few other things beforehand. So, please bear with me for a moment!
(Or, you know, scroll down a bit. I’m not your boss.)

First off, about that last Lantern Year.
Considering LY1 is typically regarded as one of, if not THE most difficult fight in any campaign, I just wanted to acknowledge just how well that went last time. Of course, a ton of factors contributed to how well we were able to handle that particular lion, from the good-ol’ pseudo-tripple ambush, to liberal use of Ground Fighting on the lion’s part and us being proud members of the People of the Sun outfitted with no less than.. one.. ranged weapon.
Of course, there is also a steadily growing pile of evidence for me being a certified Luck-vampire when it comes to this game.

Now that I celebrated my more recent accomplishments and escapades, I also wanted to acknowledge a rather hefty mistake I made in Season 1 -“Bogstop”, that I only recently discovered. So, yeah, the activation on the Frogdog Vest adds 1 armor to 1 spot in which you are wearing armor, not like I falsely assumed to all spots with armor. I have made note of this on a few of the old posts, and I have checked all fights to find out how much of an impact this mistake would have had.
I’ll put it like this: it’s not none, but I do doubt this would have massively changed the general trajectory of the overall campaign or most fights in general, though there are 2 in particular that likely would have seen the wearer of the set die, or contribute less to the fight overall.
Of course, in a game where 1 dice roll can determine whether a character dies horribly or gets glorious prices, it wouldn’t be right to discount any such mistake fully.
I will have to reiterate one core thing about myself at this point though. Something that often times gets forgotten or plainly ignored, both by people that do or don’t know me:
I can’t read.

I’m also going to quickly mention that I have started a new PotStars campaign with two of my friends, and we have been fighting a whole bunch of Frogdogs last Saturday (5 – including a failed prologue; and a first encounter with the Tyrant). As of the time of writing this I have now fought 32 Frogdogs (as reflected by my Statistics), 2 of which were Bullfrogdogs.

And finally, before I’m done with my yapping, I also got the first half of my end-of-april order. Indomitable Paleun and some more dice.
Those dice.. *shakes head* they are a sight to behold. The Feline Entity be my witness, it took me about 2 minutes to decipher which of the HL-dice was the inverted one. They mess with my eyes to an ungodly degree!

The Feline Entity just had to help out as I tried to get the new stuff sorted into the game’s core box.
Now I continue to wait for my Gorm and a handful of stuff still coming from the HQ.
#wheremygormat?

…

We were eager to return home from such a smooth and successful hunt, but as always, we still had to deal with the settlement event first! A momentous occasion, this would be the first bump in the road for the settlement as a whole, and this time it was:
Rivalry.
Out of nowhere, animosity erupted between Alissa and Lionar. At least I knew who my clear favorite was right off the bat. I rolled a 5, which I did spend a reroll on with Lionar (I did not want to lose stats if I didn’t have to, though you could argue it might not be worth a reroll) and the two survivors instead beat each other senseless, leaving neither in a state fit to depart this year.
With that out of the way, just as we had made it to the settlement, Endless Screams erupted from the darkness all around us as a heard of lopes were passing close by.
I nominated Granite to be the voice of reason and he gained both Bold and on a 5 for the event, Insight as well. His rolls for both events were lackluster but we gained a 6th endeavor from it and, more importantly, he got both Tinker and Matchmaker.

With that we were finally home and left to our own devices.
We began by innovating and the choice I got was between Hovel and Drums.., Probably the 2 I wanted least out of the whole deck.
Whilst I generally liked working towards Clan of Death early, I picked up Drums this time. Having Song of the Brave in the deck always seemed like an important step towards hunting Level 2 monsters to me.

Looking at the other resources we had, the game was giving me a clear path to follow. Thus I built that Cat Eye Circlet, and the Cat Gut Bow, together with a Claw Head Arrow and a Luck Charm.
I stored the final bone for now and looked at our remaining endeavors.

With how things had played out for the event, I decided that I wanted to purify Alissa. This should also help with the babies.
She gained +1ACC from the procedure as well as Overprotective (D) – when a survivor next to you is knocked down, you are also knocked down.
And after some consideration I purified another survivor – Reef – he rolled high (a 9) and gained +1LCK from the ritual.

Finally, both freshly purified survivors attempted a baby by drinking the Sacred Water. Being purified adds +1 to the roll per parent, but even then we needed to spend a reroll.
From a 1 and a 10 to a 4 and a 10.
After a little effort we had that baby and with them, 15 population!

Going by personal experience I had already known long before we got the option to choose, that I would be picking Accept Darkness again for this campaign as our Principle: Society. I rolled low on the table and thus Calys, Granite, Reef and Felis each gained 10 insanity.

With all that done, we started to prepare to hunt another lion in hopes of getting the Ammonia hunt event.

The Hunters:
Noctos – green (Bone Darts)
Felis – blue (Rawhide Armor, Bone Blade)
Calys – red (Bone Axe)
Granite – yellow (Cat Gut Bow)

The reflections won’t be as bad as the gear grids fill up and/or I find a better spot to take the picture at.

The Huntphase:
Close to the settlement we came across a lone White Lion Cub. With no remorse we wasted no time to turn it into resources and rolled on the table. The father showed up on a 6 and we entered the showdown immediately.

I’m beginning to wonder why the lion cubs yield so much Love Juice..?

10 cards in the deck, the White Lion started the fight with Combo Claw! A potential vicious opener, but we got to chose our target, and Felis would be the one suited best to try and tank it. At 4EVA (Rawhide Vest and Tall Grass), the lion only hit her on 8+. And, sure enough, the monster did get a hit in with a lantern 10.
It tried and managed to scratch her chest, but was unable to follow up.

As the survivor turn started, Granite took the initiative to shoot (throw?) his Claw Head Arrow at the White Lion’s backside. Rolling a 7, he actually managed to hit the monster, avoiding the trap. This gave the lion a -1EVA-token for the rest of the (pretty short) fight. And because of the high STR on the arrow, he also wounded on a 3 (2+).
Next up, Noctos quickly picked the Acanthus Plant behind him, eating it immediately it for +1 survival.
Felis ran around the monster at this point, used Embolden to gain a +1STR-token (she regained the survival from her rawhide set bonus) and attacked. Hitting twice with double 5, she also wounded twice, gaining the Priority Target token from a wound reaction.

Finally, Calys, who did not want to do less than Felis, moved into the blind spot besides her. Two more hits with the axe followed, 1 of them perfect (no current effects on that though).
Calys was already at a 3STR baseline, wounding on 2+ with her weapon. Wounding once, and critting the other hit – she dealt 3 wounds in total due to savage on the Bone Axe (and a -1MOV-token).

4 cards remaining. The White Lion was already severely hurting as it drew Claw. Felis was still the priority target. The monster hit her only once – the chest again, but she gracefully dodged it.

This lion was being very basic about its approach and as I wanted to get bow proficiency going on Granite, I resolved myself to take the necessary time to get it.
Thus Felis backed off towards the remaining Acanthus Plant close by and used her Rawhide Headband instead of attacking. We saw both Chomp and Ground Fighting up next on the deck. A filthy idea crossed my mind, but if I’m using both headband and the Cat Eye Circlet, I didn’t want to cheese it too hard and put Chomp on top of the deck, hoping somebody could deal 1 wound.
Granite then shot his bow, both hitting and wounding to my great surprise! Good job! I didn’t expect that at all!
Calys then still went ahead and attacked. Hitting twice more, we didn’t get the trap and the ridiculousness continued: she crit the first hit loction for 2 more wounds, knocking the White Lion down, before wounding the second spot, emptying out the deck.

Noctos, last survivor to act, used Embolden before throwing his singular bone dart and he.., he just about hit the Beast’s Knee, killing it on a 3+ with an 8!

A triumph on (almost) all fronts, the only thing we didn’t get was Ammonia (I).

Granite (Extra Sense FA) aged, picking bow as his weapon of choice.
As we gathered our rewards, there was one thing we are missing: a Lion Claw (I was thinking about getting Katars going, you see).

That was a very quick hunt and showdown.
Now, if we could wear the White Lion armor set, I probably would consider hunting more lion at this stage but, as I did not have a chance to get the Sun Lion Erza box (which I probably wouldn’t have used the first time around anyway), I’ll go ahead and hunt a lope next time.
That way we’ll get to work on armor for a change. And its charge-Imma-hit-you-in-the-face-armor no less.

Is it just me applying my luck-vampire aura or are these survivors really strong already? Of course, essentially having 2 extra STR at this stage is no joke and will have an impact. .. I guess, I will leave it at that for now.

As always, thank you very much for your time, and I’ll try my best to avoid such glaring mistakes with this campaign as with Bogstop. You are always allowed to yell at me if I miss something!