I do have to admit, this month has been getting away from me. Half of it is already over, including Valentine’s Day – which also reminds me of something else: I hope everybody remembered to gain that free population for playing last week!
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is an official “gimmick” for the lack of a better term. A community-interaction, or event if you will, that any settlement you play during the week in which Valentine’s Day happens to be receives +1 population.

Aside from this special “event” I have spent a lot of my time with waiting on my January order – the next sale is already not that far out either – and non-KDM things, so for today, we will be continuing with Season 3 and the Bloody Shallows, hunting another Frogdog.
“Again?” you might wonder, well, this Lantern Year is all around in a tough spot, honestly. Lantern Year 12 has the Principle Conviction event, which has a 50:50 chance of eating up all our resources .. so, we might as well hunt something easy that still has a chance to set us up for some form of econ.

It’s not that I necessarily want to hunt that Frogdog but its what we are going to do today.

***

As Malleus carried the severely injured Candy back home I had a chance to take a moment and appreciate how close that ending to the Dragon King fight had actually been (especially as I forgot about Calys and her One-Two).
Had Malleus hit the ground in a bad way from being sent Skyward – which was quite likely at the time – Candy would have died to her severe injury: Disemboweled.

But, with 2 (3) survivors alive, we instead gained 6 endeavors (3 survivors, 1 Tinker, 19 pop and Cooking I ) and drew our random settlement event for the Lantern Year:
Elder Council
As the wisest minds of our settlement got together (32 hunt xp in total) they told the tale of the Beast of Sorrow (which lost us an endeavor), adding this legendary Lvl4 White Lion to our list of possible quarries (which is more like Lvl2.5 in most cases).

Sadly that wasn’t all we had to do for the year.
The Hooded Knight also made their return! And with the last wielder of the Twilight Sword perishing just moments earlier, I was anxious about what they would do in response?
Clearly, they’ve had enough of us and our incompetence, as the Twilight Knight killed 2 of our people before vowing to return anyhow. The one-legged Ellaine and the legless Manus were culled and the rest of the settlement harvested a Monster Organ and Love Juice from the corpses after the mysterious knight had left once again.

After updating the death count by 5 ticks, we were ready to start developing!
First things first, time to Innovate!
This was going to decide how we’d progress through the rest of this phase, Scrap Smelting in particular would mean that I could actually build a Seed Pattern for once!
But I had no such luck..:
Sculpture, Bloodletting, Storytelling or Nightmare Training were the options I got to chose from. (I made the mistake to pick up the deck at this point and the bottom 4 cards I saw were Song of the Brave, Scrap Smelting, Family and Lucid Dreaming – I should have pulled from the bottom!)
For the eventual Dragon King Lvl2 hunt, I picked Sculpture this time and moved on with a grumble.

Which brought us to the big question of the phase: Dragon King Armor or Black Resin gear?
I do enjoy the Dragon King Armor for its simple efficiency, which is also why I was thinking of switching it up early on. This did question the last hunt a little, but I don’t think I’d ever be able to claim being efficient with this particular campaign.
What I was definitely going to do is build a Lure Lantern. Copper would be hard to get, of course, but I still think it’s worth trying at least and it would retain more of its power into the late game compared to the Black & Red Armor/ Elastomer weaponry.

Anyhow, after some deliberation, I activated Sanguine Extrusion to build a few things with the 8 Elastomer we got from last year’s hunt – a sword being first on the list as we were desperately in need of better weapons.
I also built a Black & Red Armet and Cuirass, and a pair of Dragon Boots.
The last Black Resin got shelved for next year and I already knew I was looking at a very scrappy armor line up for somebody.

Before I got fully carried away I also spent the Love Juice on Frogmorton and Bastet and they had a baby boy (3&6 rolled), and called him Copperfish, hoping he would fish up heaps of copper soon.
The final 2 endeavors were then spend on Malleus, sending him to do some more Augury – a 5 & a9 – 1 survival and more babies!

Frogmorton and Bastet were expecting yet again (4&6 rolled), a girl called Copperhead.

As mentioned above, this year’s hunt would feed into the Principle Conviction event, thus whatever we were going to be hunting shouldn’t be too valuable as it could quite literally all get eaten in a lavish feast (especially without a reroll).
Having reminded myself of that 50% chance of losing everything next settlement phase, I ended up making 1 more Monster Grease and a Monster Tooth Necklace from various bits still left.

Of, course I was still going to be trying to get the stuff to build more resin gear/copper, but the principle event was the main reason why I wanted to head back into the swamp again. Fighting a Lvl2 Frogdog seemed like the safest bet and quickest fight. And it also had a chance of leaving me with another Bioluminescent Tonsils for later.
Not to mention the eye for Frogdoggles. Whilst I do tend to not scout a lot – I would prefer to have the option for some fights.

The Hunters:
Emerald – green (Frogdog Armor, Sharpened Heel)
Frogmorton – blue (Black&Red bits, Hyperelastic Sword)
Ruby – red (Screaming Armor, Bone Axe)
Malleus – yellow (Leather Armor, Beast Knuckles)

There was an argument to be made for going regular Lope hunting instead, but I was counting on the Mammoth Leaves to offset our lackluster STR.
There was no reason to go for a Dragon King or Dung Beetle Knight, at the very least.

The Huntphase:
As we left the settlement we soon made a stop to do some noodling out in the wild, and we were quickly presented with the first reason why we were definitely going to roll low next year: a Burnished Encephalomatter!
With one success under our belt a second one would have been too much to ask for and we fell short on Red Incursion. Ruby took a singular arm damage before Frogmorton reappeared armed with knowledge of what was to come on the hunt.
But before we could skip that Frogdog event, we will first still had to meet the Mask Salesman (basic HE53) who had been eagerly waiting for us to turn the corner. (At least I think that is how this interaction should be played?) And.. he wanted to sell Ruby a God Mask ..?! A different mask?! What? And it only cost her her name? I struggled for a bit until I renamed her to Rustica still trying to comprehend this VERY unusual situation – my Mask Maker only has Lope and Phoenix masks, you see. For a hot minute I was thinking about not taking the mask along, because it’s just not that good – but then I noticed that it would be active in her grid! It would actually be active if I just dumped the Lucky Charm. For the novelty of the moment I had to take it at that point.
We skipped a space ahead before Malleus almost fell into a sinkhole. Instead we Dream[t of] the Way (basic HE76). I rolled no doubles for the group and we moved on only somewhat disturbed by our nightmares.
For the next step Emerald’s turn had come around and as I rolled for her my mind flipped into panic mode as I thought I rolled a 10 .. but luckily it was just a 1. Emerald lowered her lantern to find the source of the crunching sounds, but it was already too late, she had stepped right into a jagged edge of a broken lantern.
Before we finally reached the Overwhelming Darkness space, the group got distracted by a collection of Bouncing Leaves, and whilst most members of the hunting party had a grand old time (+1 insanity), Frogmorton fell into a deceptively deep puddle (luckily he had no soluble gear on his person.

Overwhelming Darkness saw Emerald and Malleus take the Path of the Insane (both gaining PTSD), whilst Rustica (+1 courage/insanity) and Frogmorton (-3LCK-tokens) walked the Path of the Doomed.
The thicc darkness left behind us, Malleus had the chance to go Mineral Gathering – with ease he finds an entrance to the Worm Tunnels, but he didn’t stop there. It had been a while since I the last time that I got the chance to go so deep into the tunnels, and I did spend all his survival to ultimately visit the Lantern City!
He dismantled the ancient forge for 4 Iron to carry and 3 Broken Lanterns added directly into storage (this part of the table has been clarified in the past to this wording).It did cost all his survival, and the whip he had actually had to help out as well, but should we be allowed to keep this (my doubts were starting to grow exponentially) we’d be set up for a few things!
Leaving the underground tunnels, Malleus got surprised one more time as he stumbled and fell into some really deep Soggy Prints, taking 3DMG to his chest, just before we found the monster.

With quite the bounty of resources already in hand we cornered the Frogdog and prepared to deliver a beat down!
Emerald gained a +1EVA-token from Agility Fighter (FA) and a stink token for her Monster Grease.

14 cards in the deck, the first attack of the battle was Gnashing and Barking – a classic Frogdog move! Emerald was the only one qualifying as stinky and thus the target. She had +4EVA from various sources and still got hit twice – you know, as it goes.
I decided to have her just take the damage to preserve her survival and that must have spooked the monster as they barking part fell completely flat on a 1.

After dealing with stank-damage, Frogmorton started our chain of dash/jump from a Mammoth Leaf, but failed to even land hits. And it was only going to get harder for him to hit the Frogdog from that point on as he would take a -1ACC-token from his chest armor at the end of every round should he not already have one.
Emerald then took to the air, hitting twice – that was more like it – wounding twice. In turn the monster leap/bloated away.
Malleus had a chance to prove himself here, but he failed to hit the Heinous Origin! This also meant that I put the survivors all into bad spots, limiting Rustica’s options of approach amongst other things. So she had to Slam into the monster’s side, moving it slightly off the terrain piece.
She did wound it twice with her assault, but her surge also just glided off the smooth skin without ever really connecting.
Overall not the best possible first turn, but not terrible either.

10 cards in the deck, and the way things had played out, we did have to tank a fart: Dusty Emission was one of the best possible draws for us. Rustica took the damage to a random hit location, and I dodged a bullet as it turned out, as she was hit square in the chest – Malleus would have taken a severe from that!
She was now the stinkiest threat and the Frogdog spun around to deliver a brutal Twitching Kick towards her. 3 hits, 1 of which she dodged and she was still standing, her armor beaten up, but she mostly unharmed.

Stank damage ate into Rustica’s leg for a light injury, whilst the other 2 endured it just fine.
Rustica jumped from one side of the Mammoth Leaf to the other and brought her axe down hard on the Frogdog to deal another wound.
Frogmorton dashed onto the Mammoth Leaf and did the same, this time finding a wound due to the Hyperelastic Sword’s special effect, allowing you to, once per attack, draw an extra hit location card if you fail to wound. He did also surge to activate his Bandages and took 2 bleed off.
Malleus managed to sneak a hit in for once, but was not strong enough to cause a wound.
Finally, Emerald ran up to the Frogdog’s side and carved out 2 more wounds by dealing a crit to the Twitching Leg Extensors!

6 cards remaining, the monster turned to Rustica for a Big Mouth Bite!
4 hits was a terrible spread and she was looking at a crisp 50% chance of suffering a severe injury from stank damage at the start of our next turn!

Rustica did get lucky as the heavy to her arms wasn’t quite a severe just yet, but she was definitely on a clock!
Frogmorton helped her get back to her feet and she didn’t waste a single moment to jump to the monster’s backside, ready to dish out the hurt again! 2 more wounds were dealt with the Bone Axe!
Malleus followed suit and with a Perfect Hit (which did nothing special) he finally managed to deal a wound! Although he did also spread more stink to ALL of the survivors!

Emerald was not fooling around anymore and with an extra +1ACC-token from that critical wound last round, she wanted to attack next. 3 hits on 6+ was the exact opposite of Malleus’ performance during this whole fight, but the first roll almost derailed all of it. Luckily even a 1 could get turned into a 3 by suffering a bleed, which was just enough to wound thanks to Agility Fighter (FA) and Emerald’s 4EVA at the time, the second wound followed a lot more easily and then the crit killed the Frogdog outright due to savage on the Sharpened Heel!!
As the Feline Entity appeared I was just getting ready to draw our rewards.

A lot of people aged from this fight:
Frogmorton (Acrobatics FA) and Rustica (Tumble FA) both hit age 1, whilst Emerald (Piercer FA!!!) was already at age 3.
Thanks to that last successful hit by Malleus all 4 of them managed to gain weapon proficiency as well, with Emerald finally becoming a dagger specialist.
We were VERY low on weapon specs! That was and is probably the most troubling bit of this campaign.

As for rewards, whilst sadly my phone seems to have eaten the picture I took of the big stack of resources we got, the only thing we wanted but didn’t get was more Black Resin, but we would still have to see how relevant that was even going to be.

I could already smell the feast they were cooking up back at home, but .. *cough* don’t worry about it!

***

So, yeah, whilst I typically have a picture of the gained rewards as the end, I guess I was more preoccupied with get a snapshot of the Feline Entity and getting into the next settlement phase.
Sorry about that!

As for the fight, this was quite the beat down. The Mammoth Leaf terrain just helps out so much with that.
Can you tell I am missing my additional STR from principles and innovations? It’s an ache in my soul!

I will also admit that, some of my non-KDM time over the last couple of days has been spent on exploring Mewgenics – a recently released video game by the creator of the popular Binding of Isaac, which has been labeled a KDM-like experience.
This is also the main reason why I decided to bring this up in the first place. We know that the creator is a huge KDM fan and it has been cited as an inspiration for this release, which I would not argue against, but as for the comparison from a gameplay point of view, I think this falls more in line with a game like Darkest Dungeon over KDM.
And I do have to say overall, the gameplay is great, a roguelite with skills-based tactical RPG combat, various classes and hundreds of unlockable items and abilities .. though the theme on the other hand .. I don’t know. I guess its not my kind of humor would be a kind way to put it.
It is NOT a game for cat-lovers! If you don’t agree with this statement .. read any of the dialogue. But I guess that could be considered obvious going by the title.

But to get back on track from this side-tangent – I am currently wondering how to best a get a “game” in with Aeneas without it taking ages; or Preacher for that matter, and at least when it comes to the former, I think you could proxy her in the sim decently well if you have the physical content on hand.
I did the same for the Death Drifter by setting aside the booklet and being VERY efficient with the space on the digital survivor sheet.
If anything, Aeneas has less survivor-specific components than the drifter. Stuff like unique gear cards. The innovation could be tricky, but that comes in quite late, if she even makes it that far.
On the other hand I would rather play the physical game, so.., yeah, I’m still thinking about how I want to handle her.

But as always, thank you very much for your time! Can you smell what the settlement is cooking? I sure can.
Amathul