Today we are simply going to continue with the early Lantern Years of Season 4.

After a successful first hunt, we return to the survivors with a bunch of scrap and the secrets to Gormchymy in their pockets and on the way, headed back home to the Gormpital.

After gaining 4 endeavors (4 returning survivors), we were ready to draw our first random settlement event of the campaign! Wooh!
And we got: Cracks in the Ground.
A 4 – even before we had reached our home, the mighty Gormstrong, surprising hero of the last fight, was swallowed by a fissure in the rocks below our feet never to be seen again – he had rolled the lowest amongst the 4 returning.

Next up on the agenda for the year was the Spidicules intro event: Young Rivals – which wasn’t much better either under these newly created circumstances.
As I was suddenly left with only Goy and Gormward as options to pick for the two rivals (the event wants you to nominate 2 male survivors with at least 1 hunt xp each) the choice had more or less been made for me by the game. So, as it turned out that they had been fierce rivals ever since childhood, one of them died on the hunt and was taken as a stalk-pupped by a Spidicules.
This left Gormward scarred (+1STR/-1EVA), and Goy dead.

And whilst we were now able to officially hunt Spidicules, I would like to get a few more Gorm weapons in hand first.

Finally, Gorm Climate needed to be resolved as well.
A 7 and no Hovel (I) meant that both Gormward and Gormwry needed to skip this upcoming hunt (unless it was a spooder).

And yet, with 2 more people suddenly added to our death count we were already faced with the next issue: the Hooded Knight had also already found our settlement because of our breakthroughs in Gormchymy!

And, yes, of course, this time he actually wanted to hand off his Twilight Sword to us. Sure. And he picked Gormwry of all people for the job. Nice.
So much for her going axe.
Now, if I’d manage to actually keep her around all the way to LY20+ (or a descendant of hers with the weapon spec) I wouldn’t mind demolishing a Watcher with it. But.., considering its Lantern Year 2 .. I do have serious doubts that this is going to play out that way.

With all events dealt with we were free to move on to the develop step.
There were 2 things that felt like the obvious ones to do: building an Organ Grinder and making a Rib Blade.
However, there was also an argument to be made to do some fun and exciting Gormchymy first! As we had 2 regular Monster Organs on hand and if we rolled low enough there was still a chance to draw another random Gorm resource – I felt like it’d be a good idea to do this first as it might influence the other crating options we had.
Whilst I was, of course, aiming for the Wisdom Potion rather than the low roll I just wanted to do some honest Gormchymy!
A 9 was sadly not good enough for either of my desired outcomes and I got a Healing Potion instead.

With 5 endeavors remaining I prepared 4 more survivor sheets for people set to head out on the hunt this Lantern Year and opted with Kigorm to start rolling on augury. Might as well get some survival on these peeps!
And he immediately rolled a perfect Lantern 10 – that’s babies!
The Valentine’s Day dice have to steer me wrong here and with a 5, one of the more harrowing rolls in any campaign had been dealt with successfully once more!
Our first child was born, healthy and with the correct amount of limbs!
The last 2 yet to be named people had been the chosen parents (Mrs. Gorm and Gormley) and their boy – Gormvoc is welcomed by the settlement with punches and hard-earned meals: we are picking Survival of the Fittest this time.

And just to be clear, whilst there are a couple of expectations out there as to how the upcoming nerf to this principle will look (including my own), who knows how long this campaign is going to take me, or when that card-pack is even coming out.., so I am sticking with how its written: +1STR & EVA and a life-time reroll.
I then rolled a 7 for the principle, giving young Gormvoc Tough (FA), +2 courage and Shallow Lungs (D – from the Lion Knight, knockdown upon encouraging somebody else).

With the most important bits successfully dealt with, I still had 4 more endeavors to use:
#1: augury – a 3: 1 understanding for Kigorm at the cost of a Broken Lantern.
#2: augury – a 10: intimacy again. The same parents as earlier, a 4 & 6 meant we got another child to add to the settlement, the girl Shaogorm.
#3: augury, again – a 9, even more babies! – a 3 & an 8 meant that we needed to reroll the 3, which turned into a 6, which, of course, was another child, the boy Gormco.

With the settlement at 12 population, I decided to switch it up at for the last endeavor and spent it to make a bag of Stone Noses for Kigorm.

In the end I kept a Broken Lantern, a Jiggling Lard and a Milky Eye in storage.

The Hunters:
Gormvy – green (Bone Dagger, Cloth)
Kigorm – blue (Rib Blade, Cloth, Healing Potion, Stone Noses)
Gormvoc – red (Bone Blade, Cloth)
Gormst – yellow (rawhide bits, Bone Axe, Cloth)

Turns out I never took pictures of my hunters – sorry about that! Not that you are missing much at this stage. I added the additional details to the line-up above to try and make up for it a little.
I probably got so carried away by the fact that we now had not only +1STR & EVA on everyone but also +1 departing survival.
Overall, it would be reasonable to assume that this hunt should be easier than the first.

The Huntphase:
Despite their eagerness to go on this hunt, as the group actually ventured out in pursuit of another Gorm they quickly found themselves on unfamiliar ground – the stone faces underneath their feet had been completely flattened and without any remaining protrusions, this Flatter Earth had the survivors so disturbed that they chose to take the long way around it.
On this detour they first discovered Drawings (basic HE21) in a cave but thought nothing much of them before they stumbled upon a Broken Lantern Oven (basic HE35). Gormvoc – the brainiac – actually took no time at all to figure out what a Lantern Oven (I) was and how to make one for the settlement – we gained the innovation from this event!

As Gormvy took the lead we heard the cry of the Mourning Bull again and decided to steer clear of it, again.
For our final event Gormst found a grouping of Putrid Tunnels (basic HE86). Gormvoc was the only one to find the tunnel dwellers, and he returned to the hunting party sick with Leprosy (-1DMG received from all sources, -2 to severe injury rolls).

We arrived at the showdown to find a bunch of Acanthus Plants and a Survivor Corpse in the area.

With 10 cards in the deck, the Gorm was well aware of our presence and started the fight with a Body Check, targeting Kigorm. Kigorm dodged the singular hit to his head and prepared a counter attack of his own!

Rib Blade at the ready, Kigorm went straigh to the sweet spot at the back leg and swung the surprisingly elegant grand weapon. Wounding on 2+ he easily drew first blood against the Spongy Leg Bone.
Meanwhile, Gormvoc attempted to loot the nearby corpse, but found absolutely nothing with a 2.

Trying her best to keep the damage coming in, Gormst headed for the blind spot to strike and she found 2 hits .. which included the super-dense hit location!
Oh no!
2 wounds later her Bone Axe had shattered against the Mammoth Ridged Spine and was archived.
Gormvy watched all this unfold from afar, and despite an opening presenting itself, she decided to go for the Fresh Acanthus instead. But instead of securing the medicinal herb, she just ripped it from the ground and left it to rot.

7 cards remaining, the Gorm stood up – it drew Rear up! This knocked both Kigorm and Gormst over and added +5TGH to the monster.

As the survivor turn began, Gormvy encouraged Kigormst, who was adamant to try and swing at least once before moving away. He failed to wound due to the increased TGH and the monster was pushed backwards as it vomited wildly – a trait the Feline Entity also exhibits from time to time.
Content to let the Gorm do its thing whilst nobody was adjacent, Gormvoc actually grabbed a Fresh Acanthus as Gormvy merely repositioned slightly before the survivor turn ended..

7 cards in the deck, the Gorm crashed back down onto the ground leaving a small impact crater amonst the stone faces with its large Mammoth Hands as the duration card resolved fully.

As before, Kigorm was the first to go on the offensive again, hitting and wounding the Mammoth Rear Clubfoot, provoking another Retch from the monster.
Gormvoc followed next and he actually managed to dish out a critical wound to the monster’s Mammoth Tail! Upon the sudden sting in its behind, the Gorm hobbled away and fell over after a while, almost too far away for anybody else to catch up with it.

Finally, Gormvy encouraged Gormst who had gotten knocked over during the retching and moving, but she unsurprisingly failed the wound with her Fist & Tooth attack.

5 cards remaining, the Gorm got back up and was ready to try and slow us down even more – it drew Strobe.
It turns to Kigormst, Gormvoc and Gormvy and 2 of them hit the floor as the lights coming from the glowing bulb on the monster’s forehead were just overwhelming.
Gormvy suffered a Brain Trauma as well, head-butting the ground extra hard for some damage as well as Hemophobia (D) and 5 insanity.

As the Gorm turned around and away from the group, the survivor turn began.
Gormst hits the Gorm with her Founding Stone (using it as a melee weapon), dealing 1 hit and 1 wound, the critical preventing it from getting into Kigormst range! Task failed successfully!
But Gormvoc somehow managed to find the spot that would send the Gorm running back over anyhow!

Gormst then encouraged Kigormst who stepped up to the sweet spot and .. failed to wound on a 1! That took some effort for the Rib Blade!
Kigormst continued to encourage Gormvy to give her a chance to deal damage as well.
She ran to the monster’s flank and struck hard! Hitting once, I did not have much faith in her but to my surprise she almost dealt a critical hit! And whilst almost wasn’t good enough, she had still inflicted a wound despite me doubting her.

3 cards remaining, I was forced to reshuffle the Gorm’s AI deck – and we got our first repeat: Strobe again.
Lumbering, it turned to Gormvy and Gormst and both hit the floor again! Gormst suffered a brain trauma (lunacy – Rageholic D and 2 insanity) and we moved back over to the survivor turn.

Kigorm, first of his name and first to take action, moved to the flank and criticalled the Mammoth Skull without any hesitation!
With 1 card left face-down in the deck (and Strobe in the discard pile), Gormvoc moved over to hopefully wound off what could be Rear Up.. but he failed to even hit the humongous creature!
Kigormst then encouraged Gormst, who then picked up Gormvy. Gormvy attacked as well, and much to my surprise yet again, she dealt another wound against an early death blow.

Seeing a chance to empty the monster’s deck, Gormst then tried her best, going for an attack of her own, but she drew the trap instead!

Both Gormvy and Gormst hit on the ground yet again.

1 card remaining, we already knew it was going to be Strobe for a third time. Both the girls were hit with another light show before the monster turned around showing off its gigantic .. feet.
Just like that, Gormst was back down to 0 insanity!

With the hit location deck freshly reshuffled I was feeling good about my chances of ending this fight this turn, the game was not done with me just yet, however.
First, Kigormst missed his clean shot at the flank, so Gormvoc needed to step up! 2 hits revealed the super-dense spot again. And whilst he managed to deal 1 more wound between the 2, both his Bone Blade was shattered and the monster was still alive!

As Gormvoc made way for Gormst to step into the flank we had 2 more chances to end the fight this round! And luckily we didn’t even need both of them.
Gormst attacked with her Founding Stone in hand and just straight up killed the monster!

As we gained 1 hunt xp with everyone, we were left to reflect on what an expensive hunt this unfortunately had been.

Losing 2 weapons in one fight was rough, but this is the way of bone-gear. And I did mention last time already, that I don’t usually respect super-dense enough. Though, I doubt that is going to change much despite today.
Especially, as the Dense Bone we had managed to loot from the dead Gorm meant that we were upgrading to 1 Gorm-based-axe at the very least.

***

Before I get to a couple my other thoughts: I am actually a little surprised that I managed to remember to not encourage anybody with Gormvoc during this fight!

Anyway.., even despite that loss of gear, I do think we should be able to make this work. Unfortunately (?) from my limited experience with both Gorm and Spidicules, I feel like Gorm can have the tendency to hog the early time-line a bit, especially with its high-value hides and fairly expensive armor set you build from them.
Somewhat similarly, Spidicules, especially at Lvl1 can be quite underwhelming when it comes to actual resources you gain from fighting it, whilst later on, especially when you are trying to put together one of the 3 rings, it can demand a lot of attention as well.
All in all, at this point I am thinking of hunting a third Gorm next, deal with the Butcher, and after that we find out if we want to hunt a spooder or keep on Gorm-ing around.
(With Surge available I wouldn’t mind skipping Spidicules Lvl1 entirely.)

And then there is also the matter of that Lantern Oven (I)! Whilst in theory it is a great pickup this early on – its heat and departing survival – it does make the Hands of Heat event A LOT worse.
If we get Gorm Climate flooding before Butcher, this is definitely the innovation that gets dismantled.

***

In non-Gorm related news.. I painted my Sunstalker!

Amateurish as ever, but I am happy with the result at the moment.
It’s is a surprisingly large monster, even on its 4×4 base, but something about it always catches me off guard.
I have since done some more work on the base and added more of the white stones – which, unpainted, work really nice as large clumps of Salt, I figured! I’ll take some more up-to-date pictures before I add it to my “gallery”.

I’ve also been thinking about what expansion to do an overview/review for next lately. And whilst Sunstalker would be on top of my personal list for that, I probably should hold off until the upcoming reprint has been finalized and released. Going by Slendy and DBK, a couple of things have been changed with each of them and this will probably be the same for all 1.6 expansions.
So, that leaves me with.. Frogdog or .. DBK?
I do have to say, I have liked the idea of getting a 2nd Dung Beetle to paint and pose differently.

But that will be all for today, I think.
As always, thank you very much for your time! The Gorm herds are getting restless!
Amathul