I can’t quite express how much I am looking forward to this campaign and everything I do write as an intro I end up deleting and re-writing, so I probably should just get right into it.

I will be starting with a few thoughts about this campaign’s set-up and goals.

***

The grand plan for this “Halfway up the Mountain” campaign:

QN1: Frogdog
QN2: Screaming Antelope/Nukealope
QN3: Dragon King
QN4: Dung Beetle Knight*
NN1: Pariah
NN2: Red Witches
NN3: Black Knight
Core: Watcher
Finale: Gold Smoke Knight*

In addition to all currently available Inverted Mountain expansions, I had been debating for a while which QN2 and QN3 I wanted to use, and whilst I had initially toyed with the ideas of both Spidicules and Sunstalker, the flammable-hate in this combination ultimately dissuaded me from going down that route.
Furthermore, with the release of the Screaming Nukealope Vignette, I found good reason to go back to the tried and trusted lope one more time. And before I knew it, I had ended up picking Dragon King again as the QN3 for the added synergy. I’ve also fought a decent amount of Phoenixes lately, so I am looking forward to mixing it up, if at least a little.
QN4 was not that much easier to pick, but I will make another attempt at DBK. In theory there is a lot to do in this campaign already, so we may or may not keep the beetle as a challenge off to the side.

*IF for some reason Screaming God releases soon-ish and/or I turn out to be ungodly slow, I reserve the right to change up part of this set-up to include the Screaming God as a QN4 and/or the Parasite Queen as a Finale (if I get that far).

Whatever the case, I will also be including Candy as a Wanderer.

As for general goals, besides getting as far as we possibly can, I really have been wanting to unlock the Carnage Worms strain for a while now, so we are definitely going Cannibalize again for our death Principle. (And if I get a survivor with Crazed FA, I will probably have them just live their best life in the settlement until the fated day comes.)
I might also pick Protect the Young for another strain I would like to get unlocked, but I have to admit that the missing stats feel a little concerning considering the nemesis line-up we are looking at.
Unga-bunga protects, does it not?

I will also be using Seed Patterns and any of my unlocked Strain Fighting Arts.
As for Character cards: I do not have enough to actually build a deck, but once I have unlocked Shrine (I) at the earliest, I will consider picking ones at times. I will not be using more then 1 legendary character card – which I am thinking will be Glow again.

But, no matter how much I just want to keep on sitting around thinking and talking about my options, the Feline Entity at my side, if I want to get anything actually done, I need to quit stalling and finally create that settlement.

***

It took a moment, but after I had finished adding all relevant events to the timeline, we were ready to gain Language (I) and the Lantern Hoard Settlement Location. To do so we did have to nominate a survivor to skip the upcoming hunt and I chose Alyssa. She gained her +1 courage and understanding and was set to ponder existence for the rest of the Lantern Year.
I also rolled for the bookmark at this point and with a 6 on 6+ I added it to the intimacy story event for the first time in quite a while.

Inspired by the scenery close to this towering Lantern Hoard, I named the newly founded settlement Bloody Shallows and welcomed 8 additional survivors for a total of 12.

Finally done with the initial set up, and with no milestones to resolve from the prologue fight, I got right to building more settlement locations.
We were fortunate enough to have 4 endeavors to work with so the base-3 location were all on the docket.

The resources we got lent themselves well to a full set of Rawhide Armor and even a full set of bone weapons for 4 people.., buuut generally I did like innovating early.., sooo..
If I were to use the ??? for hide, I was still able to get the full armor, 2 weapons AND my coveted innovation draw.
So, as soon as I had noticed this available option being decently viable, I was pretty much set to go ahead with it and innovate.

Ammonia or Symposium was one hell of a draw, but even I knew that there was only one correct answer this early in the game – Symposium.

As for the rest of the resources, it felt stupid to not take the rawhide, so I built the full set. Just know that I felt a little dirty about it.
I also built a Bone Blade and Bone Axe for weapons. I do love me my axe spec.

And with that the first 4 hunters were ready to be assembled:
Frogmagog – green (Bone Blade, Rawhide Armor)
Sapphire – blue (Founding Stone)
Calys – red (Bone Axe)
Marduk – yellow (Founding Stones)

***

The Huntphase:

Sapphire was the first to take the lead and before long the survivors heard a soft crunch beneath their feet. She was the first to lower her lantern a little and the group saw how they had been walking through a field of Broken Lanterns (basic HE01). Going from a 1 to a 10, the whole group decided to take the time and scavenge a while, returning back to the settlement with 4 Broken Lanterns before quickly heading out again.
Headed for the swampland this time, soon the stone faces consisted of Belching Mouths, and as Calys fell behind behind for a while, she got lost in the stink. Luckily she managed to catch back up with them, but she had a head-splitting migraine by then (Dishonorable D).
Taking a little too long finding the right trail along the swamp’s edges, the survivors got caught in a sudden Bone Storm (basic HE54), they decided to wait it out and before long were able to move on, however the land had seemingly shifted.
As they stumbled towards The Finale (basic HE100) of what might turn out to be a grand hunt, they approached a mighty shattering sound. Trembling with fear they found a field of monsters, each and every one struck dead. They quickly collected a bunch of resources from the carcasses and left.

But the hunt was still not quite over yet. Dumbfounded the group stood before the lone Portcullis (basic HE99), leading both nowhere and somewhere at the same time.
Left with no other options, they moved around it and came across a trail of Bloody Eyes (basic HE98). Finally at a destination, the group opened a huge ornate box at the end of the trail, welcoming the red-haired survivor trapped inside to the settlement. She was quickly named Aya – for NO reason AT ALL – and we had finally arrived at the Frogdog-fight!

For a Lvl1 monster, especially in Lantern Year 1 this was a surprisingly long hunt that inflicted a lot of brain event damage – 5 per person no less!

***

10 cards in the deck, the monster started the showdown with Revulsion. Great.. more brain damage for 2 of my survivors. Just what I wanted!
Both my designated damage dealers Frogmagog (Rageholic D) and Calys (Arithmophilia D – a lucky roll of 9 for 5MOV) suffered Lunacy.
Considering my typical luck when it came to rolling on the Brain Trauma table – that was a pretty good result actually. Unlike Calys, Frogmagog did not gain enough insanity to just stay, so he ran away.

Calys wanted to try and retaliate for the scare the monster had just given me. Instead, hitting twice, she got the insta-trap from the top of the deck! She was hit once, but stayed standing.

Frogmagog re-approached the monster but failed to hit.
Meanwhile Sapphire snuck a hit in, and despite getting kicked in the stomach for it, she wounded once!
Finally Marduk took his chance, and he hit the trap yet again! Already?! Oh my Feline Entity, what was going on?!
Whilst he also only took 1 hit, but we had 2 farts stacked up to deal with imminently.

9 cards remaining, both farts hit Marduk’s legs and he went down like nightmare-potatoes.
This was followed by the monster attempting a nibble – Big Mouth Bite, targeting Frogmagog this time.
On 6+ he was hit twice, so even dodging one hit did not prevent the bleed.

We were back around to the survivors, and Calys tried again for some vengeance, this time for getting hit by the trap. She landed 2 hits and turned 1 of them into a wound.
Frogmagog and Sapphire both failed to achieve even only hits.

8 cards remaining. Confusion targeted non-adjacent threats. Great – even more brain damage!
Frogmagog was knocked down.

This fight was moving a lot slower than I would like. Calys started the round, and despite her 3SPD when attacking from the blind spot, she hit and wounded only once. Before her act ended, she retreated onto a close by Mammoth Leaf (T).
Marduk leapt at the monster from the very same piece of terrain and despite the perfect hit he failed to wound miserably.
Sapphire also fell short yet again.

7 cards remaining. The mood Carbuncle Eruption entered play, which would make any future attack from the monster’s sides inadvisable (-3ACC and a stink token).
The monster was not quite done though as it still had a basic attack targeting Marduk in store for us. He dodged the incoming hit to not fall over.

Little did the monster, or I for that matter, know that this was finally going to be our big round!
Calys jumped at the monster and struck with all her fury! Wounded twice, the monster leap/bloated away in an instant.
Frogmagog jumped after it whilst he still could and he dealt a critical wound to the Twitching Abdominis! This persistent injury gave the monster’s Leap a (tiny) chance to knock the monster down instead of moving. And I almost forgot – this discarded the mood in play as well!
Inspired Sapphire moved around Frogmagog and tore out the monster’s Elastic Tongue in a savage display of strength!
Finally Marduk.., he.., uhm.., just moved onto the Mammoth Leaf closest to him.

3 cards left, the initially very slow seeming fight had just exploded in action and wounds! With the monster deck reshuffled we would get our first repeat-card and it was: Revulsion again, dealing more Brain Traumas to both Frogmagog and Sapphire. Urgh.
Frogmagog (Battle Drunk, 3 insanity and 1 leg damage) had a danger seizure hitting Sapphire (Hyperactive D, 4 insanity) as well, who rolled Lunacy.
Neither of them remained sane from the ordeal, so they stayed put.

Frogmagog attacked first, wounding and taking his shiny new tokens (+1STR/-1ACC).
Sapphire failed to wound, still a little shocked by that outburst of violence last round, and Calys unfortunately was too far away to get to the monster.
Finally Marduk came jumping in with another Founding Stone attack, wounding one more time! We were getting there!

1 card remaining, the monster drew its third Revulsion. This time Marduk took the trauma. He chest bumped the floor like a man and gained Maladroit (D).

With the Frogdog on its last legs, an end was in sight.
Calys jumped in first and with the Bone Axe she wounded easily enough, spreading a little stink in the process.
Frogmagog followed close behind her and killed the monster precisely thanks to his extra STR from Battle Drunk (D)!

With the monster felled, both Frogmagog (Tumble FA) and Marduk (Fated Blow FA) reached Age 1.
Frogmagog also gained a point of Sword proficiency, whilst Marduk did not wound with an eligible weapon. I also had the brief idea to try with him for Fist&Tooth in future.

As for rewards, I added Lingering Cough to the list of next Lantern Year’s events, the Froskrafter to the settlement locations and drew our resources. We got a good amount of hide again, and a good few organs as well. Overall, not too shabby a turn around, I would say.
Plus, we also got a Love Juice to trigger intimacy.

Considering how much Brain Damage was thrown around it did come as a surprise to me that nobody died during this fight, considering my usual trauma-luck.

Another Lantern Year 01 conquered – the Bone Axe does it again!

The first hunt is typically a very volatile one, and this Frogdog did certainly try to circumvent my Rawhide Armor, but we managed to unga-bunga successfully!

With 4 events lined up and a trigger for at least 1 Principle in our pocket – next Lantern Year is going to be stacked!

***

I did also get my Nukealope Vignette a few days ago as well and I will be playing and putting together a Special for the site soon. Much like with Killennium Butcher last year, expect that to go up mid next week, just prior to Black Friday.

The minis for Team Gnostin are fantastic .. once they are built. Before that.., Monday especially and the twins’ lance-banners were a .. challenge.
I might have just been frustrated, but oh boy, I did fully understand Gnostin for a bit.

With that I will slink away into the shadows again, hunting the dog of the frogs and the nuclear lope in perfect silence.

As always, thank you very much for your time, it snowed today!
Amathul