So, as per usual just after having announced my intentions to hurry this campaign along I hit a bump in the road and everything slowed down again.
This latest delay was because the Feline Entity needed to visit the Dark Veterinarian due to an infection in her mouth and the subsequent fever that had developed.
Thankfully it has been mostly resolved by now – the medicine she had to take for the last week worked it’s wonders and she is being her old self again, ready to prey upon hapless survivors and knock them over or steal their gear by sitting on it.
I will try my best to be more aware of her sneaky intentions and be extra vigilant to keep her away from biting survivors or their weapons for the time being.

So, with the Feline Entity returning back to good health, we are ready to await my next round of customs I have to pay and, in the meantime, return to the Bloody Shallows and push this place to its natural conclusion.

***

We had officially made it into another Lantern Year!
Sure, we took the easiest way to get there, but I do believe that that last fight could definitely have gone better!
Then again, the problem of “only dudes” got resolved incredibly quickly.

For now, the 4 guys guided Gibbralta to their (“her”) new home, hoping we could revitalize the settlement even after Seer had almost taken all of what we had had left.
I also had Rasputin pocket the Golden Frog ( as I wasn’t keen on trying to get a new Mere Navi at this stage) gaining him +1 courage before the group gained their endeavors for the Lantern Year: 5 in total wasn’t actually too shabby (4 returning survivors and Cooking I).

As for events, we first drew our random settlement event:
Startling Barks.
The Frogdogs were gathering again. It had been a while since we last culled their numbers after all.
Oak was feeling jumpy and rolled a 7, which got turned into a 5 by the table’s modifier: should he depart this Lantern Year, he would gain a +1EVA token.
Yeah, that was highly unlikely.
Unfortunately this event also doubled all endeavor costs for Art and Education innovations. And that was pretty rough!

But that still wasn’t all we had to do before we could start building stuff.
There was also the Creeping Longing that still persisted in the settlement left to deal with. I nominated Oak for this as well, given his lost arm it wouldn’t be too bad a loss if he, you know, ran off into the darkness, and he rolled an 8! This meant that he did get a little faster (+1MOV) at the cost of being Possessed by this lasting draw to head out into the darkness.
And whilst the Creeping Longing did persist, at this point it would not be relevant for us again, repeating in LY32.

With that dealt with, we moved on to the develop step.
I figured that I should probably start by using the Love Juice still left in storage. We wouldn’t want that to spoil, now did we?
Oak and Gibbralta (who we were hoping was a woman) partook of the juice and rolled a 3 and a 6 for intimacy. As I was getting ready to quote a Marilyn Monroe movie, a girl was born eagerly learning the way of the club from her father – Farra Stone started her journey with 2 points of proficiency.
I then spent 2 endeavors and a basic Monster Organ to make another Love Juice with Pottery (I) and had Rasputin and Gibbralta drink it for another child.
A 6 and a 9 offered us the chance to have twins!
I had (and still have) no idea where to go with with their names, in the end I settled on Alice and Bravada Claws, both gaining Katar 0 from their father.

Suddenly up to 8 population again we were looking at 4 Perfect Hides in storage amongst a myriad of other things. Overall we had a stockpile of 17 hide, 5 organs and 10 bones. Together with several nondescript resources and 2 ???.
Whilst this looked like a nice starting point for Blacksmith gear, we still didn’t even have Scrap Smelting (I).
(No, don’t mention what Lantern Year we’re in. Just don’t worry about it!)

After a bit of consideration I ended up making the Dashing Reaper which I figured would synergize nicely with Copperfish’s newly gained Astute ability.
It was only afterwards that I first noticed that this dagger also had both the lantern and sickle keywords – what a nice support item!

I then built the Count Sandals as a replacement option for Daniel’s non-set as well as the Lance of Longinus.

Satisfied with the new items I had made, I rolled on Shrine (I) – a 7: +1armor.

The final endeavor was used on Daniel and augury, but we did not get lucky enough to get even more babies, instead we lost a Pelt to his curiosity and he gained +1 understanding.

As far as our options for quarries to hunt during this Lantern Year and the next were concerned, I figured there would be 2 approaches I could take when tackling these final 2 Lantern Years.
Either I could be playing it safe – you know, the more boring option – which would be 2 more lope Lvl3 or Frogdog hunts, either of which definitely gave us the greatest chance at success.
Or we could hunt a Nukealope and/or Dragon King instead.

At this point, especially with 0 copper in storage, there just wasn’t much sense in going after a Bullfrogdog anymore, and I expected our chances against the Screaming God Lvl3 to be pretty non-existent, so I started looking at the nuclear monsters again and decided I would face my personal trauma once more: Crush and Devour.
This way, should we fail here, we still had another Lantern Year to go after another easy quarry again and hopefully crawl over the finish line.

The Hunters:
Rasputin – purple (Dragon Armor, Piercing Claws)
Copperfish – green (Black Armor, Speaker Cult Knife)
Daniel – red (Alpha bits, Vandal Broadaxe)
Farra – yellow (Leather Armor, Vandal Sledge)

So, with my mind made up, I set out to hunt another Nukealope.
Of course there was the hope that fueled me that I’d managed to not draw the trap 5 times again – which, should I manage, would increase my chances at success immensely!
And should it turn out that the lope had already been killed by another monster on my way over.., well.., a Lvl4 White Lion did also not sound too bad an alternative in my opinion.

The Huntphase:
Uneasily the hunting party set off into the darkness.
And the first thing we saw was an ominous figure in the darkness: twin-chinned the Gambler invited us to play a friendly game: Death Wager (basic HE48) for our very existence. 7, 2, 2, 5 . Nobody felt the urge to risk it all again and the Gambler retreated into the darkness seemingly content with our rejection.
This had felt like a frightening start that was followed up by yet another startling encounter. Though not for me this time around but rather for my survivors as the mountain of Living Stone (basic HE97) they were standing on rose sharply into the air. Rasputin was chosen to move to the presumed front of this titanic beast and before long the survivors found that they had reached their quarry! An 8 had been rolled as well, so we not only ambushed this ailing lope, but also got a chance to pick up a Founding Stone – an opportunity Copperfish took by throwing away his set of Bandages.

For its Lvl3 encounter the Screaming Nukealope has 9MOV, 12(16)TGH and +3(4)SPD/+1DMG, with another +1ACC-token and 2 +1EVA-tokens on top of that.
Besides the 3 Nukealope-specific inert traits – Atomic Vigor, Prehensile Tail & Critical Mass, it also has Indomitable, Legendary Horns and Exponential Yield.
Whilst the general gameplay does not change much due to adding these traits, Exponential Yield increases ☆ by 2! So any effect referencing Monster Level will be at 5 instead of 3 – and that can change a lot!
Of course, the Nukealope still has its 2 traps as well and how well this fight will go for us will largely depend on how often we draw them.
Again, due to the discoloration of the cards, I will be keeping an eye out for the Furry Tail and basic trap as triggers for the Nukealope traps instead of shuffling them in as instructed.

For terrain we had a total of 4 sets of Acanthus Plants, 1 Debris, 1 Survivor Corpse and a Bug Patch. Due to the ambush not only did the survivors get to go first and be placed wherever they wanted to be, but the board was littered with spaced out single-tile terrain pieces.

With 22 cards in the monster’s deck, the ambushing survivors went first!
Rasputin was set up to leap in immediately and hopefully remove at least 1 token from the monster!
On 3+ he found 4 hits – one more than he he needed for the effect of his Piercing Claws and I removed 1 of the 2 +1EVA-tokens to help the rest of the team. No Furry Tail or regular trap were spotted amongst this first batch of drawn hit locations meant that the attack actually resolved! By using Fated Blow (FA) on his 2nd swing (I had forgot about it for the first) Rasputin managed to deal 4 wounds before the monster jumped back 1 space and out of his limited range.
Daniel wanted to go next but his Frogdoggles once again revealed the Ferocious Spasm. Urgh!
With Copperfish just a little too far away, Farra dashed up to the monster and surged to swing with reach 2 to take out the reflex. A 6+ was even good enough to deal a wound here with surpass 5!

Due to both a +1MOV-token and the extra +1MOV from the Alpha Galea, Daniel was able to reach the monster’s facing without a dash. He swung the Vandal Broadaxe, hitting only once, but with the promise of inflicting critical wounds on 5+! The Delicate Inverted Knee was crushed by the axe and savage dealt 2 wounds at once as the persistent injury entered play that might knock the monster down when it tried to move!
He surged as well but this wound attempt failed, dealing 3 negligible DMG to his arms before he dashed away again.
Farra did run in a circle to activate the +5STR on the Vandal Sledge and she sledge-hammered the Restless Spine, not only doing 2 wounds but also putting another (less relevant) persistent injury into play!

Copperfish was the last one to activate, picking a Fresh Acanthus with the help of the Dashing Reaper being a sickle! He then moved towards the Acanthus Plant furthest in the corner happily minding his own business for the time being.

13 cards remained in the AI deck after the survivor’s first turn – a decent ambush all in all. The AI card drawn for the turn was Gore. At 8MOV the Screaming Nukealope moved all the way to the board edge right in front of it, but at this point it was too far away to reach anybody and its instinct kicked in instead.
Whilst it is still called Graze, the Nukealope’s instinct will move it towards the closest survivor to have them be Gobbled up!

*shudder*

Daniel activated first and with no more Ferocious Spasm in the deck he moved in to swing immediately. That he managed to get 2 hits surprised me a little but he only dealt a single critical/2 wounds before his surge. Without hitting at all during this second attack he dashed away to a close by Acanthus Plant.

Up next was Rasputin again. He dash/leapt and found 4 more hits. He removed another +1EVA-token and I already prepared myself mentally to resolve the trap. And just as I had expected – he drew 1 of them! A random inert trait was flipped to being active and it was Critical Mass.
The Nukealope bucked and collided with Rasputin as it rushed past him, dealing 2DMG 5 times before Farra got to take the next act.

She scored a perfect hit and struck the monster with a quaint 40STR attack, dealing 2 wounds and inflicting another -1MOV-token upon it. Besides having to dash to even get close enough to the monster, she also surged, but failed to wound the super-dense Giant Teeth on a 1.

Copperfish, once again picked a Fresh Acanthus and moved on to the next plant, still living in his own little world at the edge of the fight.

9 cards remaining, the monster drew Great Kick. Daniel was the furthest threat for the monster and thus the target.
Copperfish first encouraged Rasputin and then Daniel, Rasputin and Copperfish all spent their dashes, not only so the monster couldn’t reach its target Daniel, but I was also trying to have the team move in a way that would end up with the Nukealope charging at Copperfish with the Critical Mass trait but I messed up and Farra ended up still a little further away thus being the target of the infinite-MOV-charge!

As our turn started, Rasputin encouraged Farra so she could strike at the monster. She only managed to do 2 wounds over 2 attacks even with the additional STR from the club.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team besides Copperfish was too far away to get any attacks in and thus I had them divert their attention to terrain tiles instead.
Daniel and Copperfish both picked a Fresh Acanthus each, whilst Rasputin, who would have needed the healing the most of all just ripped the plant from the ground, destroying it in the process.
Finally Farra dashed away from the Nukealope to be able to run away from the monster if necessary.

7 cards remaining, suddenly our DPS had fallen off a cliff! But the lope didn’t care! The next card played by the monster was Bite and it was ready to go after tasty, tasty Farra.
She dashed away from the 7MOV monster to avoid the attack (down to 2 survival).
For the charge afterwards Rasputin was still furthest away and the monster collided with him yet again, eradicating his armor at the chest and head hit locations.

As it was back to being our turn, Rasputin was encouraged by Copperfish so he could dash/leap and take out the last positive token on the Nukealope. 4 hits did indeed remove the +1ACC from the monster but the Furry Tail was in this batch – and that’s a trap!

This time we flipped Atomic Vigor which meant that we would be drawing a 2nd AI card per turn for the monster from this point on and then the Nukealope collided with Rasputin. ‘
And what in the world? He rolled 5(!!!) body hits!?
That’s 4 severe injuries!?
Two 1s meant he was super-dead as well!

Farra was fuming with rage as Rasputin’s dead body hit the ground. She moved into range and even had the Horripilation dice this time! The first of 2 hits turned into a critical wound – the Degenerating Wound no less! This persistent injury meant that until the end of the next round the monster would suffer a wound EVERY TIME IT MOVED!
The 2nd hit also dealt a wound and the reflex sent the lope running .. which had it suffers an additional wound immediately – yeah!

Unfortunately the monster was too far away to be attacked again – even for Daniel and his 7MOV it was 1 step too far away!
But at this point I figured that this lope might might just be dead-dead anyhow.., as long as we saw an “unproblematic” Hit Location on top of the deck that is. I had a dastardly – probably unnecessary – plan, you see!
Daniel activated and the Frogdoggles revealed the Giant Teeth on top of the deck.
Those would do.
Daniel then moved up to the furthest Acanthus he could find and left it as we already had gathered 4 Fresh Acanthus this fight.
Copperfish activated next and threw his Founding Stone, sealing this lope’s fate whilst pocketing another “free” resource! He did also surge to get the Bug Patch examined and he found a Crab Spider!

2 cards remaining, the monster was going to draw 2 cards this turn due to its active Atomic Vigor trait. And it should die to moving too much during all of this if things worked out how I envisioned them to!
The first card played was Bite again. Targeting Farra, again! She dashed away from the monster and it did not fall over! This movement dealt 1 wound to the monster.
This should mean the monster resolves Bite again! This time it wanted to target Copperfish, and as it moved over to him it died because of the Degenerating Wound!

Victory!

And nobody got micro-waved!
Or Crush and Devour‘d..!

With the steaming corpse of the Screaming Nukealope in our midst Farra (Clutch Fighter FA) reached her age 1 milestone!
She and Daniel also gained a point of weapon proficiency – which was still only 2 points in axe spec for Daniel.

For our first successful Nukealope kill during this campaign we gained the Stone Circle Hot Zone settlement location expansion as well as a bunch of resources, including a 2nd set of Legendary Horns, another indom and both Nukealope special resources!
We got both a Love Juice and a Perfect Bone from the basics as well, which was nice!
And I drew another Gnawed Gastrolith for the indom. Sure. Probably the least helpful of the bunch I could have gotten at this stage.

Finally we had a special interaction with Bloodletting (I). A random victorious survivor gained the Nullifying Antibodies ability – which softened the impact of irradiated significantly .. which none of my survivors got during the fight.
I did forget at the time that you do gain irradiated from crafting with with the Fissile Pancreas, so there’s that to consider as well.
Overall this is a powerful ability that can be passed on to children, turning a roll of 6+ to survive irradiated into a 3+ with a chance of even gaining extra STR from it if you roll high enough i.e. an 11+!

***

All in all, that was a decent fight!
Reducing the monster’s MOV twice did help a lot, considering we managed to evade all of its regular attacks via dashes and movement. Of, course having Rasputin explode like that at the end was less then ideal, but I am going chose to be happy with this outcome for the time being. Especially after that mid-game Nukealope which definitely set this settlement back significantly in its development.
Add to that my personal Crush and Devour trauma and I just couldn’t quite fathom winning this fight fairly handily like this.

As for what we’ve gained from this fight today, we’ll have to find out what will be the best options we can build from this at the start of the next Lantern Year.
If we’d manage to get our hands on 3 Iron we could definitely build the Atomic Lance (and a Red Power Core). And considering we already have 1 regular iron in storage as well as some Tempered Hooves (which are also solely Iron) we’d only need to smelt 1 more for that!

But, alas, we don’t even have Scrap Smelting at this point.
Which I do think is kinda funny to a degree.

***

With the Lvl3 Nukealope felled by Screaming God weaponry we will likely move on to killing a Dragon King for our final regular hunt in this campaign next Lantern Year.
“Thar’s Iron in dem thar draguns!”
But that is something to consider for next time.

Which should hopefully be in a couple of days, the Feline Entity willing.
I might have Venus by that time as well, customs willing.

As always, thank you very much for your time, the Hand Parasites might have largely withered off of this lope, but the Parasite Queen’s presence grows ever larger from within!
Amathul