Today we finish up yet another trilogy of Frogdogs.
And all just because I just cannot finish the armor set in a timely manner to save my life. At this point gunning for it too hard has to be considered bait.
That being said, I wonder how it will interact/interlock with the Pond Scum armor set from Inverted Mountain.
Before I can get started on speculating wildly about Ramfrog gear I will stop myself and instead focus on today’s Lantern Year.

***

Returning to the settlement we brought home yet another victim of PTSD, cutting down the amount of endeavors we would get once again. But I’m just being a drama queen – we still got 8 and that was plenty.

On to events!
This Lantern Year’s random event was: It rang!
A 7 was rolled, signaling the bell dripping with a strange ferrous liquid, but we had nobody brave enough to sample it.., therefore nothing of consequence happened!

Now.., at the end of the last Lantern Year’s hunt I have had a flash-back and noticed a mistake I had made by sending the team I did: I forgot that the Hooded Knight would be returning this year.., and that after fighting last year’s Frogdog Calys would have the highest hunt xp of the returning survivors.
With Marduk dead, there was still a little hope left that the Knight would maybe just be disappointed by us and leave, but of course he had another sword prepared for us. With a deep sigh there was nothing for Calys to do but take the Twilight Sword more as a keepsake than a weapon she intended to use.
I’d rather try for her to get good with axes (or die trying) than switch to the Twilight Sword at this stage.

Still not done with events, there was also the Skull Eater event that Frogmagog had so helpfully added to the timeline.
He got to be the target himself, which, would you look at that, added Murder to the timeline in Lantern Year 08!
Good job!

With no immediate deaths, we were finally allowed to to develop.

With only 2 bones it would be highly unlikely for us to be able to build the Weapon Crafter this year, so we started this part of the phase in the usual way: by innovating.
Nightmare Training, Shrine, Storytelling or Drums.
No Partnership?
Something had to be off!
But in any case, these were all decent options to pick from. We would be able to do a lot with all our endeavors if we took Drums, but that thickened up the Innovation deck to the max.
I spent a moment looking at the innovations we already had and came to the conclusion that, yes, that would actually be maximum thickness. And what can I say, that was reason enough to do it for me.
The Frogdog hadn’t been too eager to hand out Drums thus far either.

Next we made some more Leather. This did net us another Round Leather Shield, a Leather Skirt and Leather Bracers.
I spent the Perfect Hide on this as well as I wanted to push as much defensive power as possible for now.

I was considering the Barber Surgeon for a bit as well, but again, with no scrap or means of getting any, I opted to pass on that.

I then used the Love Juice on Migi and Bastet, and they had another boy called Trust.

As I was determined to keep both the Mammary Gland and the Bioluminescent Tonsils, the remaining endeavors would be spent on tutoring Synchronized Strike to a bunch of people. We were drumming up a (S)torm!
Sync strike: Frogdos, Emerald, Calys & Migi
+2 survival: Candy, Emerald

The Hunters:
Emerald – green (Rawhide Armor, Vertabrayonet)
Candy – purple (frogdog bits, Sharpened Heel)
Calys – red (Bone Axe)
Hidari – yellow (leather/screaming bits, Bone Club)

I spent a good while putting this hunting party together as next year’s Murder event loomed menacingly.
Unless a tragedy happened, we would very likely have to nominate Frogmagog to be murdered, which in turn put Calys in peril of being exiled. Of course as an alternative we could have Candy get murdered by Frogmagog.
Yeah, I don’t think so.
I’d rather risk Calys over killing off our wanderer. Of course for any of this to be relevant the both needed to get back home safely first.

The Huntphase:
Before we could head out proper, both the Feline Entity payed me a visit and the Pariah’s whispers awakened an urge to Tinker in Emerald, with nothing coming of it immediately (I did draw the Clasping Shield pattern at the very least).
Trying to find a path into the swamp the survivors spent a good amount of time Lost (basic HE37).
Luckily the settlement wasn’t too far away and they simply headed out anew. The next strange sight was not too far away though, as a lone Portcullis (basic HE99) towered over the group of hunters, stood silently and undisturbed in the darkness. Perturbed the survivors were pressed to move on quickly.
Blindly rushing along A trail of Bloody Eyes (basic HE98) we were all the more surprised as it led us straight to a bleeding Frogdog!
I guess we got to essentially skip the hunt this time?

As we surround the wounded Frogdog, Candy gained a stink token for bringing her Monster Grease, and her neurosis turned her into Prey (D).
Considering she only had 4 insanity at the time, I resolved myself to get rid of this disorder sooner rather than later.

With only 13 cards remaining in its deck, the Frogdog started the fight with a Splashing Slap against the slowly approaching Candy!
At 7+ Candy was hit only once and I considered what to do for a moment. In the end I had her take the damage because the attack’s additional effect: it archived her stink token!
No more downsides for bringing the active Monster Grease!

Hidari was in the perfect position to start the round by attacking with the Bone Club. He did hit the monster twice, and luckily the reflexes were irrelevant from this position – 1 wound dealt! He finished his turn by dashing onto the Mammoth Leaf behind him.
Candy was eager to go next and she used her turn to first spend 2 survival to remove Prey (D) and gain her 2nd observation (of 8) for Reframe II. She then jumped into the same spot Hidari had also attacked from. 3 hits found their mark… and the Twitching Coarse Crest was amongst them! All of a sudden, her having archived that stink token was a bad thing! There was a reflex that had her regain a stink token though, so funnily enough that part actually worked out fine in the end.., if only the roll had been good enough to crit the crest after all that! She did deal 3 wounds – and I just noticed that I did not take any pictures of this line of attacks! Argh!
Calys then went for the old 1-2 and dashed onto the Mammoth Leaf next to her to jump. She hit the Frogdog once but as she successfully inflicted a wound, it leaped away crashing into Hidari!
Finally Emerald also dash/jumped in, but her low ACC prevented any and all hits.
The Frogdog’s innards rumbled with churning gases as Emerald understood the predicament she found herself in!

8 cards remaining – a fart was ready to explode at Emerald: a Putrid Emission hit her for 2 arm damage and a stink token.
The Frogdog then spun around with unheard of elegance to viciously maul Candy with its Infectious Bite. Again, only hitting on 7s, she would get hit once, but this time she instead chose to suffer a bleed to ignore the hit with her Gladiator Garb!

Stank-damage started eating away at Candy and Emerald as we got ready for our next line of offense.
Exactly 4 spaces away from the monster, Hidari saw an opportunity to use Slam and he took it – he barreled into the Frogdog, pushing it slightly off the Mammoth Leaf with a -1TGH-token for the rest of the round.
Candy quickly used this opening to move into the monster’s blindspot and attack. 2 of her strikes hit and both ended up being critical wounds – one naturally, one by virtue of the Sharpened Heel! Candy gained 2 extra resources from these hits, 1 head damage and +1SPD.
Whilst I considered feeding the Waxy Dermis to Cola, I ultimately held off for this showdown, and instead hoped to thin the deck to increase my chance at getting that Tatty Hide later on. At worst the Waxy Dermis would be a Leather we could work with next year.
Emerald was ready to be the next person to act and she dashed and jumped in, hitting once, perfectly even.., and of course it had to be the trap. She got slapped 2 times, taking out her remaining armor in both spots she was hit in.
Luckily Calys could still try to remove this turn’s fart. The ol’ dash/jump into 1 hit quickly got rid of the excess gas, but the monster kicked Calys hard in the midriff before it scurried away running over both Emerald and Candy as it tried to gain some extra distance.

4 cards remaining, both Calys and Hidari got hit by Confusion. Calys did just shake off the feeling like a trooper, whilst Hidari collapsed.

Stank-damage hit the exact same spots as before, as both Candy and Emerald got up a little shakily. The monster was heavily wounded at this point, so Candy felt safe enough to activate first and spend all 3 of her remaining survival. She did get rid of Secretive (D) next (3/8) hoping for more back-to-back hunts before she dashed and jumped at the monster from the Mammoth Leaf. Despite her 4SPD she hit exactly once, but she crit the Festering Dome on a Lantern 10 to make up for it .. or .. what .. that gave the monster +2TGH for the rest of the round?
Not as great as I had hoped a crit would be!
Calys had the best chance to still wound (4+ after jumping) so it was clear she would be sent in next. She only managed to hit once .. and despite axe spec, she failed her wound!?
I figured Emerald might as well attempt the wound as well so she had a chance to get a weapon proficiency point, so she also did the dash/jump thing, even hitting the flailing monster twice, but her strikes slid off the tough hide without leaving a mark.

2 cards remaining, the Frogdog got back up as its deck was shuffled. The card played was Confusion again .. but there were no non-adjacent threats! The Frogdog’s instinct triggered and it jumped back into the middle of the board whilst the dogpoles were running rampant, suddenly so far apart from their mother! Hidari and Emerald got marked with the stink and it was already back to being our turn.

Emerald fell over from a heavy wound to her legs, as stank-damage had eaten through her shoes at this point.
Hidari was close enough to dash/jump and strike, but he fully missed!
Calys did the exact same, hitting the Festering Exposed Gums with a clutch critical wound – the savage bone axe rending the monster for 2 wounds at once!
And because she had 3 courage exactly she was spurred on to draw another hit!
The monster fell to this bloody onslaught of our resident axe trainee as I failed to take the picture again – argh!

Candy did reach her 3rd age milestone from this fight, whilst Emerald (+1STR) and Hidari (+1STR) both advanced to age 2.
Calys and Hidari also gained weapon proficiency and we moved on to drawing our rewards with baited breath.

Finally!

We got that Tatty Hide! We can build the boots next Lantern Year!

On the flipside: we did miss out on scrap again though.

No more Frogdogs until Lvl3!
Hopefully.

***

Yet again I did not manage to get a full Frogdog Armor before Lantern Year 8 – do people generally have as much trouble at getting all pieces of this armor assembled, or is it just me?
Or do people not build this armor to begin with?

Anyway, with another Lantern Year down we are slowly approaching Braal. Next time we will be hunting a regular lope, hopefully getting some further progress done on the Screaming Armor set.

I have also added Snow’s Lucid Dreams (I) to the innovation deck at this point and we could potentially draw it in the years going forward.

***

Today was a bit of a rough day – we had a leak in the roof after the heavy snow we had over the last 2 weeks started thawing away – and I kinda want to talk a bit about another settlement I am playing right now to take my mind of it, but that may be a bridge too far at this point.
Let’s just say, the Gormpital is doing well and Fullmetal Gormchymist is one hell of a theme.
Gormward and Algorm fighting side-by-side with Gormvy and vanGormheim is a trip and a half. Not to mention Gormther and Fagorm or MrsGorm and Maggormgormgormgormgormgorm who are just a few of the other notable individuals.
It will be a part of the Settlements of 2026 if nothing else.

Oh, and, I think I am closing in on being able to do an overview for Candy & Cola.

As always, thank you very much for your time, for today we have Nightmare Spaghetti on the menu, cut from pasta-dough made from freshly ground cliff-strider-shells, served together with a Bloodmarin sauce enriched with Warbling buds and Screamplant scrapes.
Amathul