I have a small selections of topics for today, so let’s just start off with the main course right away.

The Forge Priest

This newest, stand-alone addition to the pillar system gives you the opportunity to add a special terrain card to your deck at the start of your campaign, that not only spawns 2 Ore Veins if drawn, but also a terrifying minion alongside them.
Luckily for you, it will only hunt you down if there is still any Iron left to be found on the board.

Hailing from the Holy Lands the Forge Priest’s mission is simple – gather Godmetal in the name of the Golden Entity!

Should you cross paths with a Forge Priest during one of your hunts, i.e. draw the terrain card during showdown set-up, which can happen as early as Lantern Year 1 (!), you are suddenly staring down a minion with 6 Life, 16TGH and a base damage of 5!
It’ll make any Lvl1 or Lvl2 monster look rather tiny – even a Dragon King!

Luckily engaging with this powerful foe is fairly optional.

Should you feel especially daring however, or are simply powerful enough to bring the fight to the Forge Priest, it is fought like any other minion out there – no blind spot nor Hit Location cards, all you have to do is hit it and beat the TGH.
And should you prevail, a mighty tool is added to your arsenal: the Forge Priest Hammer. It is a 1/6+/9 two-handed club with cumbersome, devastating 1 and irreplaceable that will make any survivor trying to spec into clubs squeal with delight. Note that it does not have slow! It does however also add knockback 3 and a flinch token to the monster, should you successfully wound with it.
And whilst the knockback is a slight nerf of sorts against most weaker monsters, it makes this hammer an ideal weapon choice against the Dung Beetle Knight – just smack the bug into its own dung ball!

Defeating the Forge Priest does remove the ability to draw it again for the rest of the campaign, so eventually there is a decision here to be made: whether or not you want to keep the potential extra chance to spawn Iron via terrain or gain the weapon.

I will say, I was toying with the idea of getting a 2nd Forge Priest to increase the odds of drawing the terrain card, especially if I could reposition the model into a different pose, but sadly it does not lend itself terribly well for something like this.
Whilst surely not impossible, its a lot more difficult than I feel like I could achieve well.

This is one of those releases that makes me excited for the simple fact that it exists.
From a gameplay stand-point: whilst I’d imagine that you can deal with this monster (minion) fairly easily most of the time (not necessarily defeat, but make it leave the board) it not only represents a degree of both risk-vs-reward, but variance to established showdowns as well. Depending on the monster, even such a simple thing as having to reposition all of a sudden could change quite a lot – I’d reckon this little fella could cause quite a lot of havoc in a Phoenix fight, for instance.
But there is also the world-building aspect – much like with the endemic life releases – which sadly have so far only been cosmetic in nature – the Forge Priest gives a little more texture to the world. It showcases a different creature, and one with its own motivations no less! Of course it is also yet another sign at a very slow but steady addition of the Holy Lands into the game after all these years.

I am definitely curious as to what future pillars will add to the game and I personally would not mind an encounter monster added in such a way – even if that box probably would have to be bigger and more expensive.

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Finally, for anyone who owns Pariah, Spidicules and 4 Forge Priests (lol) – Team Death’s very own Dark Tastemaker shared a special encounter version for the Lvl3 Inverted Pariah over on the Lantern’s Reign discord called Whack-a-mole.
Built for maximum minion-production (by having Hivemind), and with 4 Forge Priests that target Pitons like they would Ore Veins (and the Gorm traits that make surge and dash more expensive) this version of the Pariah (9MOV/20TGH/ +2SPD/+3DMG/ +3EVA-tokens/+1LCK-token – which also goes first) definitely deserves the title of Legendary Monster!

There has been talk about a King’s Coin being up for grabs should you manage to defeat it whilst it is actually upside down (if your gear grids aren’t “too game-breaking” or boring) and there’s a VOD of you doing it.

Other Arrivals

Whilst the Feline Entity was caught napping on the job, the Forge Priest did not arrive alone – it brought along my Wanderer – Preacher as well as Badar and Ingama.

I am currently trying to find a way to get a campaign in with Preacher so I can properly give my opinions on her. From what I saw whilst taking a first glance at her content, the way how you can fully lean into her new mechanics does seem incredibly interesting though.

Indomitable Survivor – Badar has been out for bit at this point and adds an Indomitable Resource to Spidicules. Over the last couple of months I have come to enjoy the spooder immensely, so getting him for my collection felt like a no-brainer.
The fact that the new Indom resource also adds a Secret Fighting Art to the mix is another welcome addition. It gives you a choice to make and/or a use for repeats of the same draw!

Ingama on the other hand features a new seed pattern to spice up the tried and true Zanbato from the core set. As both the seed pattern card and the little animation on her page allude to, it has interactions with frenzy!

Screaming God fulfillment

Parasite Queens and Screaming Gods are arriving with people world-wide, and much to my surprise backerkit seems to be the part of the process that’s slowing things down this time.
If you are a backer of the kickstarter and still waiting for your package, tracking or even on being charged for shipping – try to keep calm. There is always the chance that you have just been put fairly late into the queue and backerkit seems to be doing their fulfillment in waves. We have also had reports of people getting their packages without tracking info over the weekend.
If none of this eases your concerns, you can always contact support as well – just keep in mind that they will likely also take some time to get back to you, as I’m sure that they have a lot of tickets coming in at the moment.

I do hope everyone can get their packages soon!

GenCon Event details

This year GenCon will be happing from the 30th of July to the 2nd of August and Team Death will host all manner of events over this timeframe, including showdown demos (Screaming God & First Hero) as well as running both an arc survivor settlement as well as regular settlement over the course of these 4 days.
Participation in any of these events will be rewarded with goodie-bag featuring a mini as well as other surprises. After Riel and Bloodberry from the prior years, this time we should be getting a dude (as they were part of one of the demo showdowns of ages past).

However, the general overview is not what I wanted to talk about, but rather both the reasonable amount of speculations that comes with these events as well as new info gleamed from the listings!

First off: one of the two settlements will be building the Dead Armor from the upcoming White Box release! This is from the listing for the Arc Settlement of Death – Ostopia:

Defeat fearsome Sovereign monsters. Enter the Bone Zone. Craft the Dead Armor alongside your fellow survivors. Plenty of surprises and never before seen peeks lay in store, prepared by Team Death.

Furthermore, the settlement of Splenium, i.e. the other one, will dip into Campaigns of Death:

Connect to the Hivemind. Embrace disorderliness. Appease the Wise One alongside your fellow survivors. Plenty of surprises and never before seen peeks lay in store, prepared by Team Death.

As for speculation, especially with the way the blurb for Splenium is written I do expect both the Titan Bee as well as the Honeycomb Weaver to make an appearance.
Weaver would make for an easy pick for “hidden special event” (there are always a few of those), but who knows, maybe there is something else in store yet.
Nightmare Ram and Oblivion Mosquito could also be considered to be “up next” as well.

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And that should be all for today.
After a weekend’s worth of staring at the last official newsletter in disbelief, dealing with zombies and ghosts in Call of Cthulhu on Saturday, hunting Frogdogs on Sunday (in the same hunt event the Gambler took 2 survivors away and gave a third +1LCK!) and playing with the Feline Entity in between, I am ready to fall half-asleep as the watch for the arrival of the stampede continues.

As always, thank you very much for your time, deliver your Iron to the Golden Entity today!
Amathul