More (and less) Criblings

Lantern Year 4, showdown against Butcher. Defenders were Arb, the first speaker and Mutna, Ines and Cahlona.

First two cards in the nemesis's deck was Lantern Frenzy and Double Hack. Would have been nice to win Butcher, but here goes, I thought.

Combined with survivors scoring no hits or wounds for, what, the first four rounds of the game was... discouraging. Most survivors spent their survival on Surge, and yet no wounds, barely even hits. Arb, the support survivor, even broke his bone darts on the super-dense location. But at least Butcher was just as inept as the survivors - mostly because I had lucked out with terrain and received Tall Grass. But still, Wild Carve had some automatic bleed going on.

Then Butcher starts screaming, and while it could have been a blessing, Arb - the survivor with bandages - went down in mortal fear. I know I got dentist next week, and after this kick in my teeth I probably need it, too.

Cahlona, who had Iron Will, had become the target for Lantern Frenzy. If it only had been Ines, but no... the only survivor with extremely difficult to get ability. However, she did surprisingly fine in the constant mauling of the early nemesis. Granted, Butcher was hitting on 8+ for most of his attacks.

Then wounds started trickling in, but I waged guess that far, far too late. And when the second survivor exploded into bleed tokens, Butcher still had at least six cards in it's deck.

Next enemy turn Butcher drew both Screaming and Lantern Frenzy again, and was suddenly down at four cards remaining. I guess screaming and frenzying puts you in a vulnerable position. By this time Mutna had frenzied three times and Ines two times. Both had three bleed tokens. Losing one survivor would give Butcher +2 wounds via discarded moods, as well as +2 damage tokens from Dreaded Trophies.

One chance.

Mutna leaves Tall Grass and circles to Butcher's back, rolls five dice and scores three wounds with no trap or impervious or otherwise damnable hit locations involved.

Next, Ines. She charges in and deals the remaining two injuries with her speed 4 Rib Blade. I checked the hit location deck, and trap was next card. Hairs breadth away from defeat.

Ines had received Flower Addiction from brain trauma, but no other permanent negative effects for the remaining two survivors. Admirable, and not only because judging from the beginning, this showdown was unwinnable.


Lantern Year 5

Settlement Phase

Settlement event is Stranger in the Dark, who is apparently a terrified survivor who Butcher had been pursuing in the first place. Did Strangebutch lead Butcher into settlement...?

Mutna experiments with lanterns during Hands of Heat and gains Red Fist and +1 permanent strength from lantern branding. Right in the afterparty of branding, an old crone tells her tale of Flower Knight. Flower was given to Ines, since she had Flower Addiction already. And a precious point of evasion.

Population of nine isn't too bad, but it's far from society principle. Only two endeavors are spent on Auguries, which yields one intimacy and a double-widower Tondelone. Palm plantation in my face.

With Ines having Flower Addiction and Mutna being Megalophobic, next hunt is has a decent chance of being rough.

But first there is this Manhunter that needs to be dealt with.

Special Showdown vs Manhunter level 1. Defenders were led by Mutna, who has Red Fist, Double Dash, Mammoth Hunting and a whopping +3 permanent strength and three little survivors who have never left home: Tonone, Strangebutch and Fumelia.

Manhunter opens up the game by attempting to wrestle Strangebutch down, but once he proved dodge-y enough, he decided to shoot him in the head. Armor saved from severe injury. Makes for an emergent storyline. Perhaps Strangebutch did not lead Butcher into settlement. He may have been pursued by Manhunter instead. However, Mutna and Fumelia deal in an impressive four wounds on turn 1.

Next turn Manhunter attempts to wrestle Fumelia, and then takes a crack shot at her, knocking her down this time.

Strangebutch tries to take a swing at their enemy, and succeeds once. Then he surges another attack, and receives Prey disorder instead.

Tonono encourages Fumelia up, who then injures Manhunter and uses Surge for another attack. This draws trap, and encouraging Fumelia up is something that Tonono regrets... forever. Fumelia gains Shallow Lungs disorder from enough brain damage from trap's Gun Action. Tonono, on the other hand, dies of mortal fear.

Mutna strikes Manhunter with Butcher's Cleaver, and total from second turn is four additional wounds to Manhunter. This particular hunter seems to be quite the gunslinger, since the two AI cards left in deck both use Gun Action. Fortunately all remaining survivors have some insanity to shield their ears from ringing to the tune of Deathpact.

On turn three Manhunter was not fast enough to wrestle anybody, but he did shoot Mutna.

Strangebutch triest to attack Manhunter again, but finds a kick in his groin instead, breaking his hips. Strangebutch decides to dash away, as not being able to dodge Tombstone attacks that deal three damage per hit was intimidating. Also, I thought Manhunter might well die this turn.

Well, he didn't.

Fumelia strikes him twice, dealing wounds with both attacks, but getting knocked down from reactions - well, that sounds far less severe than what happened. She was disemboweled.

Anyway. One wound from essentially strength 9 attacks shouldn't be a problem, right?

Meh. Mutna's both attacks miss.

I try to play my cards right, and Mutna surges a block with Knuckle Shield, and then moves away to lure Manhunter away so that she is picked as basic action target instead of Strangebutch, who had one bleed token.

Plan works, and next turn Mutna butcher's Manhunter with Butcher's Cleaver. It took only four turns, compared to the excruciating 9+ turns of Butcher.

Population has sunken to only seven members, so it might be best to hunt for a Screaming Antelope next. Otherwise I would've gone for yet another Gorm, but I believe I need Mutna's matchmaking capabilities, and she is megalophobic.

Year 5 hunt - Screaming Antelope

Hunters are Mutna, Iniro the firstborn, Murdejy and Strangebutch. Latter wasn't a choice, it was necessity. Fumelia had to skip next hunt from disembowelment, Ines follows only her addiction and Tondelone has Fear of the Dark.

During hunt, survivors come across devoured grounds where a lone cauldron stands in its midst. Mutna and Strangebuch are compelled to drink, and Mutna takes ruptured muscle as she feeds the cauldron with herself. After that Strangebutch just can't stop eating and gains Binge Eating disorder.

Whole party takes a nap in their home settlement, except that when they wake each one of them has turned into their evil doppleganger. Hello, Murder. It's been almost a year since you came to visit.

During this time the antelopes have migrated, making this into a nightmare. Being evil, stupid replicas of their former selves, the hunters come across a rotten monster and decide to take a bite. Then they take a little s(o)norous rest, mostly filling up insanity. Next in line are some refugees who speak unknown language. With no resources the evil hunters may not help.

Overwhelming Darkness space has Mutna take a point of damage to arm, Strangebutch and Murdejy to lose all survival, and Iniro to gain post-traumatic stress disorder.

Wasn't that one of a fine hunt phase.

Showdown in itself went pretty well. Received a total of thirteen resources, which could have worked wonders... if it wasn't for entirely other kind of "wonder" about to happen.

Year 6

Survivors return victorious. Settlement event is Season of the Spiderling. Two victories were not enough. Dead were Ines, Mutna, Fumelia and Tondelone.

Then murder triggers. Both Strangebutch and Murdejy are dead.

Settlement is left with just one survivor. Bravely she attempts to attack Flower Knight's stronghold, and while she survives for a great long time against the riposte master, she managed to deal exactly two wounds.

Evil dopplegangers seem to herald the doom of an entire settlement. Exactly same thing happened with my last solo settlement. Damn it. I'm not yet giving up on my dream of testing protect the young + cannibalize + collective toil. But I have to say it's already showing up how much better Survival of the Fittest just is. With just one re-roll this settlement could have continued.

For a while I've been testing around Protect the Young that allows re-rolls for Age, Bold and Insight milestones. This allows for trying to build your survivors a little to a direction of your choosing, slightly mitigating the inherent wimpiness of Protect the Young survivors as time passes on, but keeps settlement events and hunt results and severe injuries just as lethal as before.