So the group of four gathered to play Kingdom Death once more.
Since the game table was set up, I continued the story of Semathi State for a few years. Enough time had passed since the death of Suneais.
But I thought I had lost too much actual brawn from the settlement. I decided to take on Flower Knight level 2, since it has lower toughness than other level 2 quarries.
Hunt Phase had more events than your average level 3 hunts. This was thanks to events like Feet giving three extra events and survivors running away from Finale.
Showdown took a long time to resolve. It was a careful dance with Rothyong the spear master taking most of the hits. Survivors didn't get to roll for Breakthrough even once, and hunt phase had given -1 strength tokens for three members. This was troublesome, but became a real problem once Flower Knight released some pollen into the air, giving some survivors even more strength penalties.
Brabatul, who had bandages for the team, but he had gained hemophobia during hunt phase. This didn't play well with survivors receiving automatic bleed tokens from leaving fairy ring.
Trap card was thankfully late in the hit location deck. Trap sprung and didn't do all that much, but during second run-through of the hit location deck trap came early on as revealed by Cat's Eye Circlet. This further had survivors on their toes.
Last two cards in the AI deck were Pommel Punch and Pollen Strike, and survivors had their defenses pretty much devastated. A stressful situation especially when hit location deck was already running low even with me keeping trap at bay with Circlet.
After way too much struggle Pollen Strike was removed from Knight's arsenal. Pommel Punch was easy to evade, but Parry hit locations with basic attack on failure were not.
Finally Flower Knight was without cards in AI deck. One more wound. Just one.
Well, it did come and nobody died, but Rothyong had received hamstrung permanent injury and gaping chest wound.
Settlement event was Phantom. Warm Virus made departing survivors to receive +5 insanity and a random fighting art.
Then the Hand paid a visit, and wanted Rothyong to die. The spear master, who is also wielding twilight sword.
I decided to resist. After making Vespertine Cello Rothyong was able to get Rawhide Vest affinities activated. No helm because she is narcissistic.
Rothyong along with three fresh recruits survived the visit of his majesty rather well. A contracture and one of the new faces having to skip next hunt were only actual injuries that happened, which came from Line Up. But since The Hand has these nice aftermath rewards, a person who grew from Warbling Bloom died anyway.
But I shouldn't complain, as everyone in the fight rolled +1 strength from applause except for Flokla. He gained the best result of accuracy, strength and evasion. Offsets contracture nicely.
Currently settlement is plagued by some sort of fancy fashion bloom. A total of three survivors have received Wardrobe Expert fighting art - and it cannot be because of lousy shuffling. I shuffle the deck and roll a d20 and take the card that corresponds with the result, counting from top to bottom.
Year 11 hunt. I was really confident in my soon-to-be axe master, reborn bow specialist, and a few other great heroes. So I went greedily at level 2 Spidicules.
This is where downfall begun, and started a cascade failure like no other.
I believe it was first full party kill during when hunting quarries. Many times it has been so very close to happen. This time, actually it was almost like one of those times. Victory and defeat hanged on one roll of 5+, with a re-roll. But nope, not this time.
I blame this defeat for losing Dharellan during hunt - the axe wielder. Kind of losing, that is. He touched a statue in an inappropriate way, and became a sculpture himself - freeing the trapped shield professional. This was a straight net loss of three points of strength.
But still the showdown went relatively fine. Until there were around ten spiderlings on board, and all the survivors locked with Frantic Spinning.
Spidicules no longer had any cards left in AI deck, so it was performing basic action all the time. This made it possible for the former statue person - the only one still remaining - to take one last swing at the monster. Failed.
Kingdom Death really tried to rub it in my face when settlement event was Skull Eater. Luckily the one with cranial cravings succeeded in self-medication, so this didn't become a long term problem.
There was seven survivors left, and four of the best ones had died. Well, at least conviction comes to help. Semathi State needed to pick barbaric.
I wanted my revenge on Spidicules. But this time around hunt party tried to catch a level 1. Hunt phase and showdown went excessively well. Spidicules takes Klamura (mother of Veromura) into it's lair. Nourain would have wanted to leave Klamura there, so Veromura took his life for such insult. That was Rivalry settlement event.
Settlement population is starting to look grim, but fortunately it's a re-match against The Hand. With two shields and absurd defenses of Rothyong I felt very secure in entering this fight. Rothyong, the spear master and twilight-sword wielder fought The Hand with Ma-aia, one of the original four prologue survivors. Veromura and Ovdar completed the party.
Ma-aia dies to very first attack, which was the Line Up. Annoying, but that was the only casualty. Ovdar took one trauma roll, but received only Overprotective disorder.
And reward are amazing. Rothyong gets +1 accuracy, strength and evasion. The remaining two get +1 strength. It's starting to look good.
Well, except that The Hand claims Ovdar's life in the aftermath roll. Rothyong and Veromura had been present in the first meeting with The Hand, so I suppose he plays favorites.
Then Hooded Knight pays a visit and duels Rothyong.
The Rothyong with +3 accuracy, +3 strength, +3 evasion, but with only one level of Twilight Sword proficiency. Rothyong falls in this duel and Hooded Knight leaves the settlement and looks disappointed. Probably I looked disappointed, too.
So suddenly there was only two members alive, third one trapped by Spidicules.
Veromura and Baledda were both of different sexes, so all was not lost. However, I couldn't trigger Intimacy during year 13. But Veromura and Baledda went off to save Klamura from Spidicules. Showdown itself went well, the two were able to butcher Spidicules at their leisure. Veromura, however, had picked Crystal Skin ability/impairment during hunt phase, and Ghostly Beauty somewhere. So she started to marbleize. And she would pass Crystal Skin to all of her offspring if she was to have any children, so I might get a settlement full of crystal-people.
Klamura is saved and returns with extra courage and understanding. What a boon!
And Kingdom Death's nightmare world definitely wanted me to continue this campaign even from dire situation like this when it gave two love juices from resource deck, and I did have a breeding pair of people in the settlement.
Double ones.
Really?
Really?? With Protect the Young life principle?
So population was down to one female with Crystal Skin.
Veromura, the Brainless Fool of Phoenix. Fist and Tooth proficiency at four. Crystal Skin, which I assume reflected her Ghostly Beauty disorder. Stark Raving she was, too. And that she was. She had +3 strength, +1 evasion and +1 speed. Well, she would have +4 strength, but one gaping chest wound from duel with Nourain hindered her.
She had faced The Hand twice, and lived to tell the tale. But to whom she would tell it now?
She had killed a fellow survivor that had insulted her mother. And then she rescued her mother. What a heroine.
I spent an endeavor to have her dance the Forbidden Dance. In hindsight this was a bad idea. She was ruined and lost -1 movement. I suppose those crystallized limbs aren't that lithe. Then she studies a statue and becomes Abyssal Sadist - I thought she might need this because of Ghostly Beauty.
I said she was Stark Raving mad. Rude to say something like that, but what else can one say when she thought that best way to save the settlement would be picking flowers and plant them for company? (I wanted to challenge level 2 flower knight in hopes of getting both Warbling Blooms to start having kids. Now imagine that. A settlement with one made of stone, and two flower-people planting their seed to fertile soil as fast as they can.)
I really thought she would be able to challenge the guardian of the woods with evasion 3 and abyssal sadist.
But hunt phase doomed that plan already. Last space before The Forest Wants What It Wants was Madflies that frenzied Veromura. Meaning she wouldn't be able to dodge.
She triggered Sonorous Rest anyway. Settlement had innovated Storytelling, so she was able to have some fun with shadow puppet play. Alone. But she was amused nonetheless and was able to relax.
Showdown started and she had +1 strength token and +1 speed token, and some other result gave her -1 accuracy token and +1 evasion token. So maybe. Maybe she'd be able to pull it through.
But she wasn't. AI cards were nasty. Thousand Cuts was exactly what wasn't needed here. Also that -1 accuracy token had her hit only on 9's. She had four attack dice, though.
She was able to score five wounds and even receive Fencing secret fighting art. But then she took a severe head injury. Without Crystal Skin it would have been intracranial hemorrhage. But with Crystal Skin it was a decapitation. She ended up with Insanity 38.
What a campaign.
I really should have taken more detailed notes and write some astounding stories that unfolded during game. House rules I had for Protect the Young were promising. More often than not it didn't affect anything, and without once-in-a-lifetime reroll the small stat gains here and there gave the player a bit more freedom in choosing where and how to have survivors killed. As happened with Spidicules level 2.
I'll allow me next solo campaign when I have really completed Flower Knight, the two survivor models I have in progress, and Phoenix wings ready to attach to main body.
Final survivor death count: 26.
Kill count:
Year 0 Prologue lion
Year 1 White lion 1
Year 2 White lion 1
Year 3 White lion 1
Year 4 Butcher 1
Year 5 Manhunter 1, Spidicules 1
Year 6 Spidicules 1
Year 7 Flower Knight 1
Year 8 White Lion 1,
Year 9 Lonely Tree 1, Slenderman 1
Year 10 Manhunter 2
Year 11 The Hand 1, Flower Knight 2
Year 12 Spidicules 2 (lost)
Year 13 The Hand 1
Year 14 Spidicules 1
Year 15 Spidicules 1
Year 16 Flower Knight 2 (lost)
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