Envisillan Epilogue

Questionable honor acquired in questionable means.

Watcher has awoken, and Caramanca, Undulantele, Biliouli and Watcrifice enter the chambers below.

First turn reveals that there is already trap waiting in the first three hit locations. Caramanca decides to concentrate anyway.

Biliouli lobs a Founding Stone at Watcher and Watcrifice shoots Clawhead Arrow at Watcher, aided by two retinues. This hits and scores a wound, but he had to use his once-in-a-lifetime reroll to achieve this. Anyway, two wounds.

Then I mess up by not reading Vortex status correctly. Watcher nearly butchers Undulantele. I had hoped his evasion +5, block and phoenix plackart and dodge would protect him from Voidwarp, which undoubtedly would have happened. But before that he had to endure four accuracy 2+ attacks. Ten damage sank in and had spiral fracture for Undulantele.

Round 2. Undulantele fishes out the Blackout and survives. Caramanca finishes caratosis and deals four wounds. Then Caramanca dashes to back arc of Watcher and surges two extra attacks that hit automatically, yet again dealing two wounds. This results Watcher stepping over Undulantele and Caramanca, who are sent sprawling to the board edge.

Then Watcher makes basic attack and then purifies Caramanca, who survives beyond all expectations. Watcher did get his +1 damage token, though. Watcher has six wounds remaining.

Round 3. Necromancer's Eye reveals Black Out and White Out coming, so Caramanca makes ultimate sacrifice and draws them both for an instant head explosion.

Undulantele dashes and then walks to take a swing at the Watcher. Two hits score two wounds, except that is tripled to six, thanks to Twilight Sword. That... that kind of makes the Watcher dead. Just like that. Just when things would have started to get tough. Next AI card would have been Stupefy, that would have automatically targeted Undulantele, who would have been scared sane - so he wouldn't have been able to use Twilight Sword.

I realize this fight could have been even easier if I had not been so focused on trying to get Beast of Caratosis to work. After all, Twilight Sword would have killed Watcher far quicker. Come to think of it, this was probably a terrible mistake. If I was to survive until Gold Smoke Knight, I would have needed that +10-14 strength. And I also sent Biliouli in for nothing. Now she just took a few looks through Cat Eye Circlet, grew another piece of regal gear and ran off into darkness as a King's Man. Perhaps she's the King's Man I'm about to face soon enough.

As I was reading about the Watcher on the internet, I found out that it's not uncommon for the fight to go this way. Your best chances seem to be on the first few rounds of the showdown.

Year 26

Well, settlement gets 5 endeavors and settlement event is Stranger in the Dark, which brings a desperate survivor covered in blood to the settlement.

Hooded Knight pays a visit and takes Undulantele away with her. So the only survivor that actually survived the Watcher was Watcrifice, whose name is truncated from words Watcher Sacrifice. Ironic.

I pass the Twilight Sword to Lebugdé.

Armor ritual is a success.

It took two attempts for Vernark to cure her broken hip.

Watcrifice ruins himself Forbidden Dance and Synrosander learns Synchronized Strike.

Then I suppose I'll go after a level 3 Screaming Antelope.

Nulpala, Lyaschura, Merdency, Synrosander, and form the hunting party in this event revealing order.

First Nulpala draws Skittish. Then she finds Tomb of Excellence, which makes everyone sad.

Lyaschura draws Baby and the Sword. Since party has no noisy gear, I decide to go for it. Baby and the sword are both grabbed, but I ditch the sword. Result brings tons of disorders to the survivors, most notably ones being Fear of the Dark for Nulpala and Enfeebled for Lyaschura.

Stampede gives a bit of courage for everyone, plus brain damage.

Merdency gets Living Stone result, which starts the showdown immediately. Right after Nulpala has her insanity reduced to 0.

Showdown itself was long and, well, boring. All on my own volition. After a few turns I managed to glitch the antelope with Chow Down. It always took a full move towards Acanthus Plant it couldn't reach, and then trampled back to the same spot where it was because of Diabolical. So, not a fun fight, but very secure. One wound at a time the Antelope was depleted of it's deck, until nearing the very end there no longer was any Hit Location card that wouldn't ruin this cowardly tactic.

But the Antelope had three cards or something. It was no match for well-equipped survivor party with 6+ survival on everyone. Though it did have it's chance at a gruesome revenge - I forget how I messed up, but the beast trampled one of the survivor to the only hit location that had no armor points on it - but results were not lethal.

Year 27

Settlement event is Acid Storm, which yields even more scrap.

I received 24 resources... is that a new record, so soon? Or, make that 26 if you count the scraps from Acid Storm and Knowledge Worm.

Settlement builds Blacksmith and raises Pulse Discoveries to level 2.

It takes two attempts for Nulpala to become Abyssal Sadist, which solves her Fear of the Dark problems.

Armor ritual is botched and gives only insanity for departing survivors next turn.

Anhednia dives to Exhausted Lantern Hoard, only to die. This gives an extra endeavor from Graves, so Lebugdé follows her. He finds two Cocoon Membranes.

I decide to hunt White Lion level 3. Haven't fought one ever before, unless we count Beast of Sorrow - who is more like a level 2.5 White Lion.

Hunt phase was catastrophic. I didn't take detailed notes during and have forgotten the results, but most survivors had lost nearly all of their armor points and insanity, thanks to Overwhelming Darkness or mud slides or whatever there are. Oh, one of the results was the dreaded 63, Feet. But at least the survivors didn't all just, well, die.

Anyway, I was hopeful.

First round survivors made 7 damage to White Lion. Next turn it was meager four or so. Two rounds were easy, but then the nightmare began. Lyaschura suffered broken rib. Survivors were busy navigating around White Lion - not to do maximum damage, but to survive somehow. Now and then Merdency the Necromancer was able to shoot an arrow to deal some damage.

Merdency took quite a few attacks in and this made him vomit blocks of iron and bloody scrap. He passed at least four or five severe injury rolls before drawing the trap, and dying because of it. Well, this was also partly because the cat had drawn Golden Eyes trait. It was either Golden Eyes or Vanish, so I thought to have a little extra reward in the end.

Anyway, Synrosander was soon to follow. Fight lasted for ages with around six cards in the AI deck. Lion had been sniffing so much that it dealt a severe injury on every hit. Thankfully Ground Fighting was one of the few cards in the diminishing deck. When it popped up, there was a moment of respite to get rid of bleed tokens and to wait long enough to get Death Die to the survivor I needed it most.

Ground Fighting was still one of the last two cards, which gave me some hope. And the best case scenario happened here - lion drew Ground Fighting, leaving only one card in the deck - which was waiting until I would deal a wound. If I dealt only one wound, Lion would draw Ground Fighting again.

But since I had to attack with Counterweighted Axe, of course both attack rolls hit. So I decided to go big or (not) go home, rolling also the Death Die. Which was also a hit.

Every attack dealt a point of wound, so Nulpala is now the slayer of White Lion level 3.

And since survivors had encountered Feet during hunt phase, nobody was able to consume Golden Eyes. Flip the table -rage kind of thingy.

But I made a record on resources again. Let's tally it all up.

Fresh Acanthus (herb gathering)
Bugfish (from sky fishing)
5 basic scrap (4 from mineral gathering and one from the beginning of settlement phase knowledge worm since necromancer died)
6 iron (4 from mineral gathering + 2 from worm trauma)
10 basic resources from Lion Cub, Dead Monster, smashing Obsidian Tower and rewards from White Lion)
10 White Lion resources (victory, one critical wound and scavenger kit)
Elder Cat Teeth

33 resources. Wow. Almost pays off for the loss of two of my best survivors.

Year 28.

Settlement receives 7 endeavors.

Settlement event is Silk Storm.

Settlement gets Lantern Research to level 3 and makes some leather.

There's enough resources to develop Beacon Shield and Lantern Cuirass, and then oxidize the Beacon Shield right away.

Nulpala uses Momento Mori and receives instant See the Truth and White Secret, with the most useless results. Rolls from Bold and Insight didn't give anything useful either.

Lyaschura cures her Broken Rib, and then settlement has to face returning Biliouli, the King's Man.

...and I'm bitter over this fight.

Brutal, cruel and dark - yet, with some hope in it.

I dedicated one of the survivors to fish out for King's Step - and she had 7 tempo tokens before she finally succeeded. It would have probably been a lost case without Necromancer's Eye + Arc Bow combo. I was able to deal at least one point of damage almost every turn.

Silent Hymn cost me Phoenix Plackart - disorder gained from that resulted in Vestiphobia.

Oxidized Beacon Shield was such an amazing piece of gear in this fight. I dare say that all because of it I nearly, so very nearly managed to win. There were only two cards left in the AI deck.

But in the end it is a full party wipe.

Year 29

Settlement event is Phantom, which makes Home innovations useless and gives Phantom Friend to someone. I choose Darstra for this.

9 endeavors.

Astarno uses Momento Mori, and gains courage & understanding of Nulpala, This gives her Sweet Battle and Peerless. What an amazing combo. She also learns Abyssal Sadist right away.

Armor ritual fails. +1 insanity to departing survivors.

It takes two attempts for Twinja to cure her intracranial hemorrhage.

Watcrifice ruins his movement in Forbidden Dance, but Darstra succeeds. Then Astarno and Darstra both learn Synchronized Strike.

Now, I know you can only hunt level 3+ monsters after defeating Watcher. However, I house ruled an exception. You can hunt level 2 Lion God - which I did. I want that monstrosity to be more accessible, and I thought this could be a good way to do it.

Thanks to my earlier success with the Lion God level 1, I was quite confident. Especially when one of the survivors learned Zero Presence during hunt phase - perfect fighting art against Relentless AI deck.

Fight was exciting for a long while. Oxidized Beacon Shield once more being the key to success - only when the wielder ran out of survival points to dash out of field of vision, the troubles began. Also, I had ground the trap to become last card in the hit location deck - and survivors had depleted it. Bow wielder took his chances and triggered trap. He got killed because of this.

Zero Presence survivor died because Lion God threw a toppled pillar on her.

Eventually the survival-less Beacon Shield wielder died, as I desperately tried to score the few remaining wounds.

There was only Astarno the Necromancer left. And Lion God had two cards in AI deck. A couple of round she stands brave.

This must be the closest battle I have ever fought and won, as Astarno dealt the killing blow when she had four bleed tokens, and Lion God was attacking her - resolving the last AI card on it's deck. Astarno had lousy evasion value, so that card most likely would have killed her, if she had failed to kill first. So, a success of sorts.

Year 30

But it's no success when settlement has only three members at the dawn of the final boss fight.

Settlement event is Slender Blight, and it makes departing survivors to switch their survival and insanity values. And then.

Hooded Knight arrives and kills the last remaining male of the population. Gold Smoke Knight will only have Twinja and Astarno to fight.

But hey, Settlement has Bugfish, Hagfish and Jowls. So, I get a new innovation! Filleting Table. Hooray. Innovation after Lantern Year 25. A hollow victory.

Armor ritual is a success.

Other than that, settlement crafts some leather and makes Lantern Gauntlets for Astarno.

The rest are pretty much spent on Shared Experience to trigger Age 1 & 2 for Twinja.

And, uh. I guess the duo will now tackle ultimate boss of this game. The Gold Smoke Knight.

And what a fight it was!

I was prepared to die, like, on turn two or something. But Oxidized Lantern Shield and Club Specialization and Diversion Tactics made the two survive for surprising number of rounds - and even deal four wounds to the knight! Two came from perfect hits from club and two were lucky criticals, all done by the peerless, quixotic and stark raving Astarno the Necromancer, who was abyssal sadist and enjoyed sweet battle.

Abyssal Sadist and Peerless combine unbelievable well. This time I truly saw it in action. Astarno was able to use Oxidized Lantern Shield during her own act and then have free surge from Sweet Battle. When she scored some lucky wounds, they gave her +2 survival and +1 insanity from Abyssal Sadist / Peerless interaction. So until the end she was able to deflect + dodge most of attacks, especially when Twinja was still around with Diversion Tactics. Oh, not to mention the Tall Grass terrain, which combined with Astarno's gear gave the knight -5 accuracy.

It was a good last stand.

Rest in peace, Astarno. And the entire memory of Envisillan.

Before I give myself permission to start a new solo campaign, I will need to have Flower Knight and Manhunter painted, one extra survivor ready and have some progress on the wings of Phoenix.