It is the 14th of the month, and in theory it shouldn’t be too long now until we get (hopefully) jump-scared with Witches and Wanderers info – or Dark Treasury emails.
In other news, last weekend, a settlement of Tyrant fodder seemed to be making a full recovery from the brink of annihilation only to still (almost) fail anyhow due to a Plague and Necrotoxic Mistletoe combo, leaving the settlement without any rerolls for a crucial intimacy roll that naturally went very wrong. She tried to have the Tyrant restore her lost organs, but instead returned with a death rattle about forbidden knowledge of single-room-housing. Left on 3 people with no female able to participate in intimacy (because the last one alive has Performance Anxiety D), they’ll get probably one more chance to fight a Flower Knight for a Warbling Bloom.
That is also the same settlement that almost lost to a Flower Knight Lvl1. How you may ask? Well, when 2 of 3 players control 3 characters and run into the Flower Ring with a “nothing’s-going-to-happen-anyway” attitude and stay in there – turns out a Flower Knight can get up to 4DMG per hit even on level 1.
But enough about that. That’s just a funny, if slightly frustrating anecdote. We got some babies to hatch!

Azure Pond has been doing rather well all-round and as we keep exploding monsters with the power of The Sun we are almost at one of my favorite milestones – axe mastery!

I can’t help but be skeptical about my chances to get the Pyrolytic Light to LY15 (looking at you Principle: Conviction), but I’ll definitely try.
Having it in storage definitely makes me a lot more interested in getting a Blacksmith. Mainly because having Bloomery (I) and the expansion would give us access to both a katana – the Wrought Tachi – and a 4th type of bow.
All bow squad hunt once we hit bow mastery?

On our final few steps before we were finally back home, we were suddenly caught in an Acid Storm. This turned out decently fortunate, as we got one more scrap into storage as only minor stuff broke around the settlement.
But this year would be special in another way: it marked the first of 4 years straight with story events. Beginning with:
Birth of Color.
The small Sunstalkers have begun hatching! We are all moms now! Well.., all except for one person – and I nominated Helios to be the Vivisectionist. This had him gain Emotionless (D) – which did feel appropriate – and he immediately started having ideas on how to improve the settlement. We gained Umbilical Bank (I) from these efforts as Helios started to wonder how the newborn monsters might look from the inside.
Of course, he rolled a 1. Luckily, he did still have his reroll and he would be stupid not to use it. Instead he got a 7 – that’s more like it!
Thus he devoured the small-ish being to leave no evidence of this blasphemy. He had become a literal Sun Eater (SFA) and got an additional +1EVA as well, from dodging the allegations.

So this was how we could make the most out if Children of the Sun! Fitting that Helios made this discovery. Attach them to a baby Sunstalker in Umbilical Symbiosis! The only natural conclusion I should have come to ages ago.
This also meant I should probably use up the stored Love Juice to get a few “Life String” into the bank for a future attempt at said connection.

But we had a couple of things to consider all in all, now that we were done with events for the year. We should be able to both complete the Leather Armor set we had been working on as well as innovate if we dipped into the stored feathers again. Not to mention that there were also a couple of other items I would like to try out at some point.

But for the time being though: I did what I usually did in such a moment: I decided to innovate first.
Hovel, Saga, Story Telling or Face Painting.
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I’m not shuffling that deck at all.
A part of me wanted to take Hovel to get closer to Clan of Death, but looking at it rationally, it had to be Saga. Especially if I was about to use 3 Love Juice in one sitting. There was also an argument to be made for taking Face Painting because of the same fact, but all in all I came to the conclusion that we should be more than fine on the bonuses-to-intimacy-front whilst we had rerolls in the settlement.
Without further ado, Saga was chosen!
We would be weaving grand tales of the time before the small entities had hatched for the benefit of the younger generations!

We were also definitely making Leather.
*cut to about 15 minutes later*
Oh, what the… I’m finishing the set!
*cut to another 5 minutes later*
This did costs both Tail Feathers (the one stored and the new one), but we got the set done!

After spending maybe 20 more minutes on looking at stuff that is not relevant at all to us at this stage (the expanded blacksmith items for example), I figured that we might as well have some babies.
We had 3 Love Juice in storage, a returning Matchmaker and the Sacred Water for 5 intimacy events in total. We also had 6 rerolls to help out with poor attempts.

#1: Basalt (+1) & Celestine (+1) – 10 (8) is chosen: twins!
Comet (male, Berserker FA, +1ACC) and Stardust (female, Extra Sense FA, +1 endeavor)

#2: Alissa (+1) & Reef (+1) – 4 (2) is chosen, a normal ordinary child.
Cynthia (female, +2STR)

I quickly purify Sol before he gets a chance to procreate(+1ACC).
#3: Sol (+1) & Calys (+1) – another 4 (2), another child.
Gwyn (male, Armored Fist FA, F+T spec, +1STR)

#5: Sol (+1) & Calys (+1) – 6 (4). Still a normal child.
Flare (female, Last Man Standing FA, +1 card when innovating this year)

#6: Basalt (+1) & Celestine (+1) – 6 again (4). One more child.
Planetoid (male, Unconscious Fighter FA, +1 card when innovating this year.

#7 (augury): Basalt (+1) & Celestine (+1) – yet another 6 (4). And .. 1 more child. The Feline Entity blessed this one.
Moon (female, Berserker FA, +1STR)

5 healthy children and 1 endeavor remaining at the cost of no rerolls! With this we were up to 22 population.
6 children after augury. 23 population in total.

After we were out of endeavors, the time had come to consider what I wanted to go hunting to push Calys to axe mastery. And ultimately I decided I wanted to change things up again. With the additional benefit of having the opportunity to maybe collect a couple of Fresh Acanthus to party with, we were going out to hunt a lope Lvl 2 this year (which surely, you knew that already). Other then that, we would get axe mastery secured and then… maybe shoot for the stars? Or at least for a Phoenix Lvl2?

Before the group set out, I made a last-minute Monster Tooth Necklace from the Phoenix Finger and one of the many scrap we had to activate the Sonic Tomahawk. It’s not like Calys needed the +2STR when fighting Lvl2s, but getting savage would be great.

The Hunters:
Moon – green (Leather Armor, Beast Knuckles)
Alissa – blue (Rawhide Armor, Bone Blade)
Calys – red (Screaming Armor, Sonic Tomahawk)
Reef – yellow (Rawhide Armor, Sunring Bow)

The (almost) A-team is on the job!
We were just hoping that the lope wouldn’t run away too hard.

The Huntphase:
The first sign of the monster’s presence was the veritable Carpet of Ticks it had left behind on one of its strolls close to our settlement. Moon and Alissa were fine fending off the bugs, however Reef and Calys got cornered. Whilst both we able to fight their way out, their survival fell to 0. What a bad start already!
To nobody’s surprise the next thing we found was a Sickening Mess (basic HE94).Alissa, Reef and Calys all started chowing down, taking a -1STR-token, whilst only the young Moon (+1STR) investigated, also triggering Bold. With deft hands she was able to secure an unspoiled Monster Hide from the pile of goo!
Moving onwards, sick to our stomachs, we saw nothing but upturned earth before us. Devoured Grounds stretched far and wide, Alissa hurried the group onwards and whilst we found nothing of use, the group was able to make great time!
Beyond the desolate waste we found a second set of tracks. And whilst we could have been Opportunists (basic HE44), gaining only half of our potential rewards against a monster that could easily heal felt like a dumb move, so we continued on normally.
(I am still unsure when you would ever fight the wounded monster?)

The hunt was progressing quickly as we already breached the barrier of Overwhelming Darkness: Walking the path of the brave, the whole group got lucky and they all took a couple of negative tokens: -1ACC for Moon and Alissa. -1EVA for Calys and Reef as those 2 saw the Nightmare Whale above.

Next on the to-do-list was this campaign’s first post-OD Mineral Gathering. Reef picked up his pickaxe and hit a random stone and it started bleeding profusely, giving him Hemophobia (D). Just how we liked it!
And the lope had turned Skittish during this time as well! It must have spotted us, or maybe we got distracted for too long, as we found a Test of Courage (basic HE85). None of us were courageous enough though.
So, feeling generally inadequate, we pushed on to do (hopefully just) one more hunt event. The Screaming Antelope was close by and apparently cornered, so we saw a chance to rest at the foot of a Faceless Statue (basic HE06). A curious spot to rest at a curious time. But I’m not complaining. We found the monster shortly afterwards!

As for terrain this lope got the regular amount of acanthus and bugs, some extra Tall Grass and a f-ing Sinkhole!
We’d have to avoid that!

As we sang a part of the debuffs away, the lope began its offensive.

15 cards in the deck, the first attack was Gore. The monster came sprinting towards us at full speed!
It randomly selected Alissa to go after and hit her hard in the stomach, knocking her down! With Diabolical it stomped on her as well, dealing another hit to her gut! All her armor gone at that spot already, and a light wound dealt, she was flung into the back corner of the board!

Calys saw an opening and attacked the lope from the side. Despite her 4SPD and 4+ to hit she was only able to hit it once!? The wound, at least, she dealt with ease.
Moon then started the process of harvesting Acanthus to give the monster less opportunities to maybe heal.
And finally Reef shot the Claw Head Arrow and, wait, what? It hit?! Had he finally figured out how that item worked!? Another wound was dealt for a fairly lackluster first round compared to the last few fights.

13 cards remaining. Crush and Devour comes off the top of the deck. OH NO! Not again!? Instant panic erupted in me. And it picked Calys as the target as well!?
Without much trouble the monster gobbled her up. If we lose the chance at axe mastery it would be like this, huh?
She rolled – a 2 for the Crush and Devour event table! No – that would outright kill her! She still had her reroll though! And she rolled into a 7, instead! Yes! She was fighting back now! And a 10 on the other table! She tore at the monster’s Second heart! An internal wound was dealt and she was going to be spit out! Hitting the floor covered in saliva she gained 1 insanity. What a turn of events!
Oh, Feline Entity – I hate that card. It always surprises me that there is only a single copy of it as well, as it feels to integral to the lope’s identity to me!
The monster finished its turn by trampling Alissa again, letting out its frustration for failing to have a snack, this time stomping on her hands.

As we began our turn Alissa activated her Cat Eye Circlet, seeing nothing of relevance for the Sunring Bow, before she moved towards the closest Tall Grass.
Reef on the other hand moved a little closer to the monster with his dash and activated his bow. He had 4SPD for the attack and he hit all 4 times – 1 of which was perfect. (This is a mistake with little consequence overall, but he should have only had 2SPD) From the remaining hits he was only able to turn 1 more into a wound.
Moon now found herself in range to attack as well. She dashed up to the monster’s side and attacked as well! 2 hits landed and she managed to find the trap.
She suffered a brain trauma, New Perspective and the monster was back in the corner where it started.

10 cards remaining. Run Down. And it ran off again. Luckily Moon was also a potential target for the attack and thus we sent the lope over to her. 5 attacks because she was knocked down, 4 hits, 3 of which went to the body, for 2DMG each. She dodged 1 of them. The 5 armor at each spot from her Leather Armor did pay off a little here as she took no real damage.
Both Alissa and Calys got trampled afterwards.

Calys got up and took a few steps away to fool the monster into thinking she was running away, but she slammed right back into its side. Only 1 hit, yet again – only 1 wound! At this point it was looking like she actually needed the 4SPD to do anything!
Reef was ready to takes his chances as well though. 3 hits with his bow spec (There is another mistake here – for some reason I though he was up to 5SPD?) Only 2 wounds! I’m rolling pretty bad for these attacks – especially whilst I’m thinking he has 5SPD – its only a 3+ to wound!

7 cards remaining. Bolt. The lope was looking to run away? But not without attacking Alissa first! 2 hits to her feet, of which she had to dodge 1 to avoid a severe injury.
This time it was the lope that went for the fake out! It came dashing right back to trample over Alissa!

Alissa got up and quickly moved away from the monster to pick an acanthus only to find nothing useful at all. Meanwhile Moon gathered her second herb of the fight!
Calys slammed into the monster yet again, keeping the fight going and its attention on her, but it had set another trap! Rearing off, both ran into different directions, fleeing from one-another, like 2 lope’s locked in a jousting match in the open plains.
Finally Reef returned to the closest Tall Grass and used his Rawhide Headband to catch a glimpse of what lay ahead.

Still 7 cards remaining. Stomp. The lope wanted revenge and moved towards Calys, but couldn’t reach her.
It was able to trample her though.

Moon and Alissa were both still removing acanthus as the Feline Entity appeared, and both still found nothing despite the celestial presence.

Calys slammed into the monster once again, and this time she was finally ready to unleash her full fury on it! 4 hits dealing 4 wounds! Yes! What took her so long!?
Reef on the other hand couldn’t quite reach, so he moved just a little closer before he uses his headband again. I did not trust this lope one bit with its reshuffled deck – and I knew it! Crush and Devour was sitting right on top! Not today!

3 cards remaining, we had changed the attack to Bolt.
The lope seemingly knew about Reef as it ran over to him to attack! 2 hits dealt. Instead of dodging he used the flow to dash out of Diabolical, and to open a path for the lope.
It was then drawn back in to the group by its Diabolical nature, despite not being able to reach any of the survivors.

With all these high speed weapons attacking, Alissa tried to sneak in a hit for proficiency. She used Embolden to up her chance to a 6+ for a wound and she attacked. 2 hits, and she actually managed to wound on the second one! Good job Alissa!
Next up Reef – 3 more easy hits with the bow, 1 being perfect. His arrows struck true, dealing 2 late critical wounds, ultimately killing the monster! (Of which I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!)

As we moved on to rewards, Reef (Backstabber FA) aged, before Calys could finally claim the true prize of the fight: Axe Mastery!
I do enjoy a good axe master!
Reef was 2 points away from bow mastery, and Alissa was only 1 point off of sword mastery. Exciting times lay ahead!

Finally we collected our resources. Overall its been a decent haul. Lets try our best to get these through the next settlement event phase. Looking at the spread we might want to save a bunch of them if possible, just to have more junk to eat at the inevitable feast.
If you get it you get it.

At this stage my Crush and Devour paranoia is one of the main reasons why I don’t particularly like to hunt the Screaming Antelope.
As mentioned above it genuinely surprises me time and time again that it is a single-copy card that defines this monster for me so, so much. And this paranoia stems from my very first fight against the lope. And I know its never been this bad ever again – it chewed 2 survivors to bits – biting off almost all body parts off of one of them, but I am under the impression at least, that I fairly consistently build lope decks with Crush and Devour in them, even especially for level 1 and 2 (lvl 3 is no surprise).

A final comment concerning my mistakes with the bow – I only noticed on the final attack with the bow that I had mixed up 2 of the stats. At that point, the fight had progressed too far to undo the previous mistake, however I barely hit on the 2 attacks that were most affected by me being a goof.
So, I came to the conclusion that I, effectively, only hurried through the deck to be closer to the trap. And I think that is fine ultimately. Let me know if its fine! (Though I will say, it is a bit late for retcons.)

I am also obligated to mention axe mastery again before I close out this post. Axe mastery is probably my favorite of the weapon masteries, for its simplistic strength. It is the bunga to my unga, if you know what I mean. Not that other masteries aren’t strong – most of them are – or more useful – a lot of them are, on paper, more useful – but my philosophy is simple enough to align perfectly with both axe and club – a dead monster is a gooder monster compared to an alive one. Ye.
The common axe master is also the natural predator of the higher level Phoenix. And we will be trying our best to set up that fight soon^tm.

And that is as far as I am going to take it for today.
As always, thank you very much for your time and please, for the love of the Feline Entity, watch out for that gurgling undermaw! I can’t take it anymore!
Amathul