As promised, with the settlement successfully started, here is the Grand Plan for my “Fullmetal Gormchymist” campaign:

I’ll still actually need to stick to it, though.

I’ll also be using all 4 pillars I currently have access to as well as try to activate the bookmark from the Ringtail Vixen box. As for Character cards, I might add those at my discretion after innovating Shrine (I), whilst Seed Patterns will be active from the start.
Finally, since I’ve first started Season 3 I have played the game for frankly an unreasonable amount and have unlocked all remaining game over milestones from the Core game, so we will be using all 4 of them in this campaign as well.

Whilst the long-term goal for this PotLantern settlement, besides having fun and trying out new stuff of course, will be another attempt at the Parasite Queen fight, there are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind achieving with the Gormpital.
For one, I would like to get a better understanding of how the Lion Knight functions. If it even does? There are quite a few opinions out there on this particular monster and most call it either nonfunctional or just flat-out “bad”, so I would like to see for myself. Currently I am thinking “how bad could it be?”
I also wouldn’t mind actually making use of the Trophy Wall this time around, or getting the Alpha Armor fully built.
And there are also still a few strains I would like to get as well. The one for getting somebody killed during Herb Gathering for instance.

But first things first .. setting up the new settlement.

***

Obviously this place is named The Gormpital!

After setting up the settlement record sheet with all manner of events, I rolled for the Intimacy bookmark first, but sadly a 5 was not quite good enough and I would have to make due without this safety net yet again.
I then added the extra Skull to storage and we moved on to the first proper settlement phase.

With 3 endeavors at our disposal, the First Day event got resolved: I rolled another 5, which meant 8 more survivors approached the towering Lantern Hoard from the darkness, setting our starting population to 11.
I then sent Magorm (who couldn’t go and hunt Gorm anyway due to her crippling phobia of large things) to ponder the Lantern Hoard as I built the innovation deck.
She gained +1 courage and understanding each for a Lantern Year’s worth of spiritual pondering.

With Language gained as our first innovation, and the game over milestones active as well, we were already at 3 Survival Limit. But that wasn’t all we had to get set-up just yet.
Because I had lost that Finale fight against the Parasite Queen in Season 3, we were forced to use the new pillar in this campaign: Manifold Spread.
This added the Manus Infestation Innovation to the settlement, which would require me to roll a d10 every time somebody survived a severe injury during a showdown. On a 9+ a parasite would then wake within them (i.e. they draw a parasite queen resource card) which, should they successfully make it back home alive, would at that point turn into extra resources to be used during crafting.

Usually we’d be moving on at this point, but with Gorm in the campaign there was one more event that needed to be resolved before I could make use of our first three endeavors: The Approaching Storm.
Goy ran into the mind-numbing storm, quickly taking a stone to their own eye to stop the flashing lights on the horizon, suffering blind but gaining +1SPD in the process.
Sadly, no insta-Hovel for us. And from this point onwards, the settlement was forced to endure the lasting Gorm Climate each and every Lantern Year.., or.., well, until we get Song of the Brave (I).

We then finally got to update our death count for the very first time and due to Algorm’s sacrifice we got to resolve our death principle right afterwards.
I had decided early on that I would be taking Graves this campaign and a Lantern 10 high roll got us +1LCK on Gormwry as well.

And with that we were finally able to develop!

I quickly built both Bone Smith and Skinnery, but was unsure about what to do with our final endeavor as we were in a surprisingly great position to actually innovate this Lantern Year!

After building a rawhide “core”, a Bone Axe, Bone Blade and Bone Dagger, the Feline Entity convinced me to take the plunge and I innovated instead of building the Organ Grinder.
Inner Lantern or Symposium.
Those were not really a choice when it comes to picking a first Innovation to be honest, so I picked Symposium, upped our Survival Limit to 4 and moved on.

This did leave us with an extra Monster Organ back in storage, but I was sure, I’d find a use for it eventually.

The First Hunters:
Gormstrong – green (Bone Dagger)
Goy – blue (Founding Stone)
Gormward – red (Bone Blade)
Gormwry – yellow (rawhide bits, Bone Axe)

Hunting Gorm can be a bit of a mixed bag during early Lantern Years as the events associated with this quarry can be pretty bad on the ol’ psyche. But, in turn, once we’ve made it to the fight, nothing would compare to the +1DMG prologue for a good while.
So, in that regard, I expected this to be mostly a push-over.

Goy was the first to set out into the darkness, leading the group straight to a Great Game Hunter and his retinue. As we marveled at the Sportsman’s Kill, the weirdly clad stranger taught Goy a valuable lesson about hunting monsters (I rolled a 4: reroll one random hunt event result).
Pushing onwards we found ourselves in the territory of a Mourning Bull who had just lost their mate. (I get a feeling I know what had happened here..) I did decide to steer clear of the monster as I did not want to get ambushed by a +1DMG Gorm, which did put everyone on the brink of getting brain traumas. Not necessarily great either.
Careful to not attract the attention of the older Gorm, the hunters followed another Gorm’s Laughter (basic HE57) and manage to corner it successfully!

At Lvl1 the Gorm has 8TGH, 6MOV and no traits whatsoever.
It does however feature a super-dense hit location to be weary off when attacking with bone gear, which both Frogdog and White Lion don’t have any of.
Gorm will typically start vomiting on people as a reaction to getting hit. Retch will move the monster 2 spaces backwards and then deal monster level DMG that ignores armor in a large 4×5 area in front of it.
Combined with several hit location cards that give a +2STR bonus when attacking from the monster’s sides, You will ideally want to attack a Gorm standing next to its hind quarters and not from the blind spot.

Our random terrain was fairly uninteresting all in all, giving us a 2nd set of Tall Grass and a Giant Stone Face.

With 10 cards in the deck, the monster started by Rampaging! Oof.
I sent it after Gormwry as she had the most armor to soak the 2DMG hits with. Ultimately she was hit twice, and despite dodging the hit to her legs, she still suffered bash from the After Damage trigger.
As the AI card was returned to the top of the deck, Gormward was then the target of the ongoing rampage, dodging a hit to his head to stay standing from the follow-up basic action.

Gormward started the survivor’s turn by running to the monster’s flank and attacking! He hit the Gorm once, finding the death blow much too early, but more importantly, he dealt a wound on 5+ exactly!

Goy then spent his 1 survival to stand Gormwry up, who quickly attacked the monster but missed! Still reeling from the hard hit to her chest, she backed off to not get Retched on.
Gormstrong fearlessly took up his Bone Dagger and moved into the blind spot! He hit the lumbering creature twice and despite only wounding on 7+, to my great surprise he managed to wound both of them!
He did get booty-blasted by the Retch though, sending him flying off.

Goy finished our first survivor turn by moving into the Tall Grass closest to him.

7 cards remaining, the monster started leaking – Posturing Piss!
This was more or less the dream scenario for a lot of campaigns – whilst this mood meant that survivors ending their act im the Gorm’s blind spot would essentially start suffering leg damage, if we’d manage to defeat the Gorm with this card in play it would give us the Ammonia innovation for free!
The follow up AI was Rear Up – a duration card that gives the Gorm +5TGH whilst its on top of the deck!
Gormward was knocked down by the monster lifting its front legs, and he was facing a severe injury next turn if he didn’t get up and run away in time.

Whilst this was an AI card we could just stand up and run away from, I was immediately thinking of just throwing a Founding Stone and be done with it for good.
And whilst this was a little wasteful, I do generally like to play hard and fast in these situations so..,

Let’s do it.

The resulting wound was not a resource, sadly.
With the +5TGH-tokens cleared off of the Gorm, Gormwry moved back in to hopefully deal an axe wound! And with 2 hits on 5+, she not only landed a critical hit on the Mammoth Wrinkled Elbow for 2 wounds due to savage, but also a normal wound against the Mammoth Bulging Eye!

Gormwry then used the survival she had just gained from inflicting that critical, to stand up Gormward, who took a few steps and attacked as well.
He only managed to get 1 hit secured, but with a +2STR bonus to wound from the flank, he turned that 3+ into another wound!
Gormstrong was also quick to run in, and as I did not expect to wound that first card, the Gorm waddled off, bleeding and in pain!

0 (1) cards remaining, after a devastating turn for the monster, the Gorm was already all out of options and down to its basic action!
It attacked Gormwry with this desperate last ditch effort, hitting her hands twice! But she just tanked the damage, as it had dealt only a light wound to her.

Gormwry moved to the Gorm’s side but failed to land any hits! Maybe she had been affected by that attack more than she had let on initially.
But Gormward was on his way to protect her already! He struck from the Gorm’s side, killing it before it could Retch on either of them!

Our first Gorm lay defeated!

As the group gained their hunt xp, Gormward (+1ACC) and Gormwry (+1ACC) both aged and both managed to high roll on the table with a 16 and 17 respectively!
Gormward then also gained a point of sword proficiency as Gormwry took up the way of the axe!

With 2 new locations and 2 new innovations added to settlement we were looking great already.
Too bad the resource draws overall felt quite poor – especially the 2 Broken Lanterns. But, if nothing else we could still build a Rib Blade at the very least!

This did have an unfortunate side-consequence for the upcoming Lantern Year that I did not take into account whatsoever at this point in time. But it’ll bite us in the butt next time, when we talk about it for real.

***

And that is Lantern Year 01 in the books.

Gormstrong really stepped it up today – he was in it to win it for sure! That dagger should not have dealt so many wounds! But .. that is also part of the randomness of KD:M: sometimes stuff just works out.

Before I call it quits for the day I have 1 more thing I wanted to mention. And I was unsure whether or not I should mention it at all.
But this will mark the 2 year anniversary for the site. That’s 2 whole years worth of pictures of the Feline Entity, lucky rolls, killed plastic monsters and recorded stats. And I just wanted to say a quick thank you to anybody who stopped by, had a look at what I am putting together here and/or read any of it!
It has definitely been an interesting journey so far, especially that one time I was out in the middle of the woods at night and suddenly saw a picture of the Feline Entity in the official newsletter. That sure was a surprise!
Anyways, thank you once again for stopping by, I do appreciate it immensely!

As always, thank you for your time as well, the Gorm are gathering!
Amathul