After having taken a few days to play and watch the game instead of writing about it, today we are continuing with the Screaming God hunts.
So far, from what I have seen, most of the things you can build from the Screaming Goat are quite powerful, but not as game-warping as King gear is. And it’s definitely not as easy to build.
In that sense, I would probably compare it to Bullfrogdog gear in terms of power right now.
But these are just my first impressions, and might very well change in due time.

***

With the Feline Entity already waiting in the wings, the hunting party returned to the settlement triumphantly after felling their first Node 4 quarry monster!
For their success on the infinite track, they gained 8 endeavors (4 survivors, 2 tinker, Cooking (I) and 13 population) for the settlement to work with.

Overall, I expected this to be a fairly quiet Lantern Year. Partially because event-wise we only had the random draw to deal with. And it turned out to be my old buddy – the Dark Trader!
We didn’t have the resources to spare to buy the thong this time but maybe there’s still a chance he’d come back at a later date.

As we were already moving on to building stuff I took a good long look at what we were able to build here. And it wasn’t all that much as it turned out.
We did have all the bits for a Vandal Sledge (yes, please!) or 2 pieces of the armor set – chest and waist. The latter was not reliant on anything from the club so I quickly came to the conclusion that there was only one real way to go about this:

We should innovate!
Nightmare Training, Saga, Heart Flute or Scrap Smelting.
Saga would be nice to have, sure, but after a couple of back and forth-s I picked up Nightmare Training from this line-up.
I was hoping to maybe be able to push a character or two across specialist or mastery thresholds. But we’ll still have to see how well that works out for the rest of the campaign.

Then we built the Vandal Sledge!
In the hands of a club master with a little bit of SPD and/or MOV this weapon should be monstrous, able to routinely inflict 2 wounds per hit and ever so often even dip into 3 wounds PER HIT!

We also had 2 more Iron in storage, so I made some Leather from bits we just looted (a Monster Hide and ???) and built that waist armor – the Alpha Gambeson!
The ability on this piece is quite powerful (whenever you spend a “move” on an 8+ you gain 1 survival) but isn’t the easiest to activate with my grids (1 blue, 1 green affinity and 1 green puzzle piece).

At that point I also had just realized a small problem for the upcoming hunt: Goldenglow and Celestia would not be able to participate due to their Secretive (D) natures.
So, even if Indigo were to partake, we were still short usable survivors, which meant that we needed to attempt at least a little bit of augury.
Serena was chosen to roll for babies at the Organ Grinder.
1st roll: a 7 – +1 survival.
2nd roll: an 8 – babies!
Goldenglow would be their mother, Morbius the father. A 2 and a 9 came up for intimacy and I guess we’d have to pick the 9. Twins! Rush (m) and Chrysanthemum (f) of the newly founded Stone family both gained 4 points of Club spec as they grew up in record time!
I then chose to go for a 3rd roll for augury: a 9 – more babies!
This time Indigo was chosen to be the mother – a 4 and a 7. And thus another child was added to the claw lineage – Ansgar.
(I was a little unsure if saviors could have children at first but saw nothing saying so and thus continued.)

For the final few endeavors we used one on Shrine (I). I rolled a 5 – +1 armor for everyone.
1 endeavor was spent to activate the Bell of Challenge (I) to make Celestia Honorable (D – to lose the extra-hunt-xp disorder)

And for the final endeavor I felt like I wanted do do something dumb.
How about .. Forbidden Dance (I) .. with Serena?
I threw the dice eyes closed and it came up an 8! Ominous!
3EVA is pretty chunky.. or uhm, flowy?
Wobbly?
MC Hammer?

The Chosen Hunters:
Ansgar – purple (Dragon Armor, Piercing Claws)
Serena – blue (Black&Red Armor, Hyperelastic Sword)
Chrysanthemum – red (Leather Armor, Vandal Sledge)
Rush – yellow (Outcast gear, Grimacing Guillotine)

Inspired by the last grand success we were taking a group consisting mainly of younglings to the next fight.
And I really wanted to go for another Screaming God. To maybe make another weapon – the spear would be great, I think. Or if we wanted to dream big – the grand weapon.
Of course we could just continue making pieces of the armor set.
And should we crash and burn, the worst thing to lose here would be the Lemniscate gear (which I actually managed to set up wrong – but luckily it did not matter that much in the grand scheme of things), but KDM often times works on the principle of “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

At this point I was certain that the most important fights we had coming up would be Pariah Lvl3 and the Watcher, which was also part of the reason why I held off from bringing Indigo this time. We would need her next year to try and avoid Pariah’s loss condition.

The Huntphase:
With a little hesitation this group consisting mostly of young hunters who left the settlement for the first time, set off. They were keeping a little too closely to what they had heard in stories the last hunting party had shared and soon they stood before the same Splendid Depiction the other group had visited as well. Unable to read they were swallowed by a crippling fear of bumping into things (Dystychiphobia D) by this scenic tidal wave of antelopes.
That same fear immediately sent the stumbling into a gigantic nest of Madflies (basic HE52) on the edge of the swamp!
Oh Feline Entity save me now!!!
Luckily none of these 4 idiots rolled an 8+ (all between 3 and 7 for +1insanity) and they remained un-frenzied. Not exactly a pleasant start. They also did NOT know the adage of Sir Hermes., but how would they even?
As Serena prepared for Red Incursion, I briefly considered if I should roll the random event first, but by then she was already in the Elastomer Mines (a 5 rolled, upped to an 8). I also reaffirmed with myself that I would go all the way if possible (a chance for Iron seemed worth it at the time, especially as the mollusk could not kill her), and she must have gotten pointers by Sapphire I believe – a Red Thread and 2 Black Resin .. as well as 6 more Elastomer and 2 Iron for storage! 2 bleed was an incredibly small price to pay for this large a haul!
And whilst I was still trying to get over this lingering feeling of things being rigged – Ansgar suffered a bout of Crippling Misery (basic HE34). He fell down a hill and broke his leg! Crunchy!
Things kept spiraling further as we entered a Sea of Fragments. Whilst Rush kept looking for useful bits, Chrysanthemum was almost swallowed up whole by a sinkhole! She was forced to prevail or die! Drowning in stone did not sound like a fun time, so that was 7 survival down the drain in one fell swoop.
Again, the world adjusted slightly and the group soon stopped at a fountain gushing with Clean Water (basic HE23). That was a welcome 1 survival and 1 courage for everyone. Ansgar made use of the opportunity to douse his head and he got rid of Dystychiphobia (D). Serena also followed this lead. Rush and Chrysanthemum only got themselves wet though.
The group moved on towards Overwhelming Darkness with only Rush seemingly distracted by something. As they pushed towards the threshold, Rush made his way to a cliff edge instead. Despite the choking darkness he witnessed the Horror of the Infinite: a gigantic mass of antelopes, flowing, crashing in a tandem of madness and lost direction, melded into one rippling mass. Traumatized (D) young Rush returned to the group unwilling to recall what he had just seen.

For Overwhelming Darkness: Chrysanthemum took some arms damage whilst the rest of the group rolled a suit of 4s. They all threw up at the sight of the Nightmare Whale (which worked out well for Chrysanthemum at +3 survival), and Serena took the opportunity and used her Inversion Fighting Art to flip the -1EVA-token to its positive side. This effect was limited to be used once per Lantern Year and effectively getting 2 stat ups for 1 seemed great!
Passing on into the 2nd part of the hunt, the survivors found themselves guided by a Fathomless Song. Nobody was susceptible to the call of the infinite this time and thus they rushed on forward, straight into their quarry’s den!

Screaming God hunt events just aren’t all that friendly, are they? They do seem to feature a few opportunities to skip upcoming spaces, but most of them just send you right into another Screaming God event with this hunt set-up.

As we gained our arrival bonuses I noted that Serena was sitting at a 9EVA – wow! (That’s +9STR as well!)

And as the survivors fell in line in between the monster and the Stampede to pick up the frantic chase, the monster was already prepared to fight us off.

17 cards in the deck, the first Labyrinth tiles came into view.
Maybe I had the wrong idea, the monster spun around with a glint in its eye: the Screaming God had gotten hungry – Thrash and Devour was the first monster card played and I wondered who would be best have get Devoured .. and I ended up choosing Rush, as I felt he had the least chance of getting the others out instead.

Chrysanthemum, bearer of the Vandal Sledge was chosen to start the fight off for us, partially as her low survival had me fearing for her ability to matter during most of the fight.
She dashed towards the monster and hit the Screaming God with +5STR from the powerful new club’s ability: and the Screaming God immediately fired off a Withering Blast as she wounded the mighty creature’s Ceaseless Tensor. Rush was vomited into her at high velocity by this, and both were knocked over, as he broke his jaw.

Ansgar quickly encouraged Chrysanthemum to have her strike another time: she did deal a critical wound to the Grasping Undermaw this time, which not only dealt 2 wounds due to Surpass 5, but also had her diving under the monster for another hit and another single wound.
Overall she had taken a lot of damage on her turn, especially because of Dystychiphobia (D) but she had also inflicted 4 wounds – that’s a solid exchange, I’d say!
Serena was the next one to attack, first encouraging Rush to maybe give him a chance to use the Grimacing Guillotine‘s effect. After moving around the monster, she first failed the 3+ to wound on the Deathblow, but wounded the 2nd card the effect of her Hyperelastic Sword drew for her.

As she got punted away, Ansgar dashed into position to Leap at the monster with the Piercing Claws: 4 hits, non of which being the trap.
The hits were overall pretty bad though and they’d either run the monster away or clipped Chrysanthemum with another Withering Blast.
So, I had him roll to wound the Ceaseless Abductor, and the monster rushed towards the Horizon because Ansgar only had 2 points of katar proficiency yet.
Rush still saw a chance to deal a wound, and he did after dashing, but got flung backwards towards the Stampede for the audacity he had just displayed.

10 cards remaining in the deck, the chase continued after a decent first round! Ansgar picked up Serena, who in turn picked up Rush and dashed to avoid the Labyrinth tiles ahead of her.
For AI, the monster began its turn by putting a mood into play: Incendiary Breath! Withering Blast would combust (read: archive) flammable gear from then on. Having a quick look over all my gear grids, I saw that only the Monster Grease would be affected by this.
Oh.., and there’s also that Withering Blast ignores armor points .. nothing to worry about – nothing at all.
But the Screaming God was not done just yet. Something seemed to be stuck in its throat! It stumbled back and forth, and appeared to be choking on something – Aspirating Smash!
Nobody had the Devoured status, which meant that Ansgar was the target this time. He was hit 3 times for 4DMG each!

Chrysanthemum activated first again to hopefully capitalize on her Surpass 5, but she failed to meet the 8+ threshold for the double wound. The Withering Blast tore into her in turn, causing a severe waist injury – destroyed genitals! Her ovaries exploded under the undulating pressure – and as she lay on the uneven floor of the racetrack she gained Apathetic (D) as she questioned her purpose in this world – pretty bad, but very fitting.

Ansgar quickly leapt into the blind spot and dealt a wound, only to get kicked away almost all the way to the Stampede.
Serena moved up to the monster next, struck once and wounded the Ceaseless Rump. That slap on the backside sent the monster running towards the horizon, picking up Chrysanthemum as it collided with her (I forgot to roll for the damage dealt in the picture: 4 to the body, 2 to the head.)
Rush could only move up towards the fight, bandaging himself on the way.

6 (7) cards left, the chase continued after a somewhat lackluster round 2 and the Labyrinth tiles were getting more difficult to navigate as well!
The AI card drawn for the turn was Glowing Snarl.
The Screaming God charged all the way from the Horizon towards the Stampede and Ansgar, who felt forced to dash a few spaces up to not get flung into the Stampede from this after damage effect…
Or I did not need to worry at all?! In a monumental roll by the Screaming God we saw several rolls of 1!

After Ansgar dodged the last incoming git, Rush had had enough of waiting around and he moved to the monster’s blind spot.
The Grimacing Guillotine made an off-putting giggling sound as it was swung through the air to deal a critical wound to the monster!
This did a bunch of things:
It discarded the mood currently in play.
It had the monster spit out Chrysanthemum into its blind spot.
And it spawned a Divine Fragment next to Ansgar.
Meanwhile the 2nd hit on the stack had the monster freak out and run over Rush and Chrysanthemum.. dealing more damage, including 1 severe wound each as the monster ran away towards the horizon again.

Ansgar spent his turn picking the Divine Fragment clean – he scooped up a bunch of Glycol Coolant.
And then Serena finally found the trap. The monster leapt up and exploded 2 Labyrinth tiles as it crashed down back onto her. She was not gobbled up because Rush was already riding & dying inside of the Screaming Goat.
With a fresh deck at our disposal, I did have Chrysanthemum get up after all. She moved in normally – she was down to 1 survival already and I did not feel like spending it for +5STR.. and she found the Perfect Hit for us instead!
That’ll do it!
And it was a crit as well! She crushed the Screaming God’s Ceaseless Withers! Instead of a Withering Blast, the monster spat out Rush, spawned another Divine Fragment and suffered 2 wounds.

3 cards remaining, the chase was not done just yet .. and our survival was getting dangerously low! 3 people were down to a single 1! Chrysanthemum (hit in the legs) fell over Rush (waist) in the ensuing commotion of trying to keep up.

As for AI: the mood was put back into play – Incendiary Breath. But it had clearly been putting a lot of strain onto the monster as it was choking again!
It rushed over to Serena to stomp on her with Aspirating Smash, and despite the 10s only to hit, it got 2 hits in! The Black&Red Cuirass prevented one of then though.

Serena was the first to attack the monster – fueled by the fact that there was a chance that we could kill it this round. Serena hit it twice, but the arms scattered across the Screaming God caused it to buck suddenly, kicking her over after the first wound!
Rush spent his dash to pick up a Pyritized Splinters, gaining another movement which he used to clear the upcoming wall of Labyrinth tiles.

And then Ansgar spent his final survival to encourage Chrysanthemum.
If she were to dash and find the 8+ for 2 wounds, the monster would be dead. It wasn’t great odds, but I was ready to go for it and take the gamble! She hits the Ceaseless Gullet with a normal hit, so no doubling of the wound attempt.
A 7 .. a single wound but not enough to kill! But I had COMPLETELY forgotten about her being Apathetic (D)!
So we rewound to before the attack. I did still pick her up though. I also rechecked the turns beforehand, to make sure I didn’t miss anything else. She was on 1 survival already as she only had 4 to work with.
.. T’is attack was but a dream ..
I mainly left this in because it was quite the emotional up and down for me at the time.

1 (2) card remaining.. the Labyrinth was getting cramped again!
We knew Aspirating Smash was incoming and Rush was still in EVA mode, ready to tank the hits with a total of 9EVA. Nothing could touch him!.

Rush activated first, hoping he could end this. 1 hit and everything but a 1 would wound for him.
Whilst he did achieve this, this line of attack would not have worked out without me making a mistake with he Lemniscate gear – but between the other 3 survivors close by, they should have been able to kill the Screaming God anyways.
He also surged as he was still sitting on 5 survival (shattered jaw keeping him from encouraging helped him keep his resources.. who would have guessed?) 2 more hits. The Itchy Cataracts were a First Strike location but but anything but a 1 was going to kill the monster.
And a 6 did do it!

Rush (Inversion FA), Chrysanthemum (Giant’s Blood FA) and Ansgar (Crossarm Block FA) all aged from this fight.
And likely more importantly, Ansgar also got katar to specialist level! The reaction canceling on katar really helped a lot here in the previous fight.

So far this had been a decent hunt with a couple of scares, that overall turned out fine.

But we did still need to survive the Desperate Harvest!
There were 11 spaces between the monster and the Stampede this time, so we had 16 opportunity in total to play with.
Pyritized Splinters -3.
Ancient Beacon -5.
Calcified Cataract-5.
Sculpted Slab -4.

The antelopes were upon us!

The Stampede flowed around the Screaming God’s dead body, antelopes biting and nipping at the hulking body as they passed, and slowly crushed it to paste, mercilessly trampling the survivors as they desperately clung to their prize.
And just like that we had to roll on Trampled .. but an 8 saved our resources! Ominous! We did suffer a random severe injury with everyone though.

Chrysanthemum had her back broken – that’s retirement.
Rush got unreasonably lucky again, despite getting kicked in the head.
Serena died!?
And Ansgar suffered a Gaping Chest Wound.

The Feline Entity held a quick inspection before we got to take the resources home. She seemed a bit disappointed by the outcome. I’m not sure what the problem was in her opinion – that we got trampled, or that we survived getting trampled?

Somehow we were allowed to leave with the scraps we had gathered today.

Losing Serena was rough, but I guess her luck might have simply ran out. Considering she got that Forbidden Dance EVA as well this Lantern Year, and the 2 iron from the mines.., yeah, all that had probably been just a little too much.
Sadly the other 3 weren’t exactly in prime condition now either. Even Ansgar, who got hit with relatively little, had -1MOV and 0STR.

We’ll have to see how much we can do with these resource draws next time. I don’t think we can actually build all too much with them.
It is a bunch of iron though, so there is that.

***

So, yeah… getting trampled .. can’t recommend.

Getting a 4 on that last pull was just kinda tragic.
The Sculpted Slab is part of the Trophy Taker shield though. And wouldn’t that be nice to have?

***

It is funny writing this whilst listening to Deno kill a Screaming God Lvl3 – he is just moving so fast!
And he’s already making plans for the next campaign, as well.
If you want to see a Parasite Queen showdown in the wild – he will likely be fighting her tomorrow or the day after (13th of June/14th of June)! And whilst I’m sure he will be putting up a good fight, I’m curious if he will be able to win.

As for the Bloody Shallows, next time we are going to face off against the Pariah for a final time and Indigo and Goldenglow will be joining us for that fight, I think. To give us the best possible chance of winning.
I sure wouldn’t mind demolishing the fiend next time!

As always, thank you very much for your time, you should really try to not get trampled.
Amathul