It sure took a long time to finish, but finally another Kingdom Death stop motion instance is here.
The settlement in question is long gone, but their memory still lives in over 700 individual frames.
I mixed up the axe-users names in the texts, and at least two dice can be seen in the pictures, but other than that it's a little smoother than first video. But the Butcher miniature without moving parts isn't as evocative as Gorm is, so I don't know which would be my favorite if I had to pick one.
Showing posts with label settlement10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label settlement10. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Cribling Settlement
Since the board was already already set up, I started a new solo campaign for Kingdom Death.
This time I do things a little differently.
I'll kick White Lion completely out of rotation. Even tutorial is Gorm, though I use Strange Hand hit location and prologue AI deck. But otherwise Hit Location deck is Gorm's. I won't use Gorm Climate because I'm getting a little tired of it.
Prologue went on like a dream until there was but one AI card left. Up until then no dead survivors, no permanent injuries.
But then survivors started failing their rolls. Survivor who gained the permanent strength died (how else?) and another had his foot dissolved in acid retch.
When a survivor accidentally emptied the AI deck, I couldn't risk it any longer and tossed Gorm dead with Founding Stone. This even yielded Active Thyroid for survivors.
Both Love Juices were drawn. But it wasn't that easy. First roll was a dead mother. A second juice came out as a baby, though, so both principles were triggered on Lantern Year 1. Cannibalize and Protect the Young. Because I really want to see how this combination and Collective Toil would play out.
So, first year hunt is obviously Gorm.
First survivors encounter Mourning Bull.
Now, this is a lesson I learned when I was making the animation.
I took the brain damage in. Well, of course that was a little easier because picking death principle gave all departing survivors +3 insanity.
Next head splitting pain.
Mutna the Mammoth Hunter gains Megalophobia disorder.
Slass had a danger seizure and dealt one point of damage to his body, and gained +2 insanity and became Prey.
Ines and Ytiro both have their insanity dropped to zero, which already was such.
Gorm walked a little closer, and showdown was ready to begin.
First time ever Resin Dung Ball made it's appearance in a showdown. There was also another batch of Tall Grass.
Gorm draws Thunder Foot, and then performs body check on Ines, who in turn lobs Founding Stone at the beast. My rationale here was to hope for a good critical that would ease the remainder of the showdown - as well as to get rid of Thunder Foot rather sooner than later.
Critical it was, but with no permanent effects. Gorm was knocked down, which resulted in four wounds on turn 1. I'd have been excited if prologue hadn't been that fresh in my memory.
Gorm starts hiccuping, which was exactly the bad news I was afraid of. All survivors were adjacent to Gorm. Only two got knocked down which was a relief.
Ytiro scores a critical wound with Bone Axe after Ines encourages him.
That was the extent of survivors' luck. Gorm starts rampaging, and kills Molvaneus right away. Well, he was the Prey after all. Ines barely survives the following Basic Action, and next when Ytiro fails to connect his axe to Gorm, Ines takes some bile from a retch. This causes a heavy injury to body. Only Mutna is left to act, and I really, really need to remove that Rampaging from top of AI deck. Mutna throws Founding Stone at the beast and scores a wound.
So many wasted Founding Stones.
Next Gorm strobes a little. Phew. Three cards left in AI deck. Thunder Foot, Strobe and Body Check. No too bad.
Year 2
Settlement event is Heat Wave.
First Speaker is nominated to become the Voice of Reason, but he just loses his jaw.
I'm concerned about the state of settlement's resources.
Only bone resource I received had to be used on innovation (which was Paint, by the way, so yay for that.)
Sure I got good tools, but none which would actually kill a Gorm. Full rawhide set, stone noses and fecal salve are all good. But one survivor has to go completely unarmed to the fight.
Cahrun, Hta, Ytiro and Ines set out for Lantern Year 2 hunt.
Mourning Bull wrecks everyone's brain again, and a sportsman mutters some careless whispers. But then things got... interesting. Very interesting indeed. Mask Salesman turned up and offered Death Mask for Bone Axe wielding Ytiro. Will he be able to carry the showdown with +4 luck and -4 to severe injury rolls?
Maybe. Portents at least were promising when Dead Monster and Nightmare Tree were random terrains. Ytiro would be able to strike at least twice before dying.
Well, he took a swing. Failed to wound on a reaction that caused Basic Action. This didn't call for severe injuries just yet, but it was a demoralizing start.
There was probably a forest growing on my face from all the face palms I planted there. It wasn't until fourth round when Ytiro finally scored first two wounds. Even there results were seemingly mocking. Ytiro wounds Gorm on 5+ and scores a critical hit on 6+, so obviously damage came from double fives. Oh well.
Progress was excruciating. Gorm wasn't all that adept in dealing damage either, but time was on Gorm's side.
Survivors had dealt a total of four damage when Strobe came up. Mourning Bull had indeed destroyed the brains of survivors - only Ines had a point of insanity from Stone Noses.
Hta frenzied, Cahrun fleed and Ytiro...
Ytiro died.
Yeah.
During whole showdown Ytiro scored no critical wounds despite having +4 luck. And he did not roll even a single severe injury with that -4 penalty - it was a straight up death from mortal terror. Makes me wonder if Death Mask was actually just an illusion.
Other survivors took the hint and started to wound the beast. But every remaining survivor had heavy injury levels - Cahrun sported with every single hit location having either light or heavy injury level. She was the next to die. Not that she was able to contribute much anyway - she had to use settlement's last Founding Stone to get rid of Rampaging.
But this happened when there was two AI cards left. Aggravated Bite and Body Check. Not too bad at all.
And without much of a hassle survivors dispatched those AI card. But then something happened.
For many turns survivors were not able to score a single hit - even Hta with frenzied Bone Darts was unable to do anything from Gorm's blind spot.
And when he finally did, it was Lure Paroxysm. Second time during showdown. It think Cahrun actually died to the last Paroxysm.
Killing Blow didn't come from a Strength 4 bone dart. No, it was Ines' desperate clawing with bare hands. With a critical strike.
I did get around twelve resources, though. But I count the corpses of Cahrun and Ytiro to this figure.
Year 3
Joyfully survivors return to settlement. Player wasn't all that joyful when he found out Hta had developed an unnatural hunger for the skulls of fellow humans. Skull Eater on year three and upcoming Murder on year four.
And when I do a tally of the resources, I notice I'm starved of bones again. Did Hta eat them all or what? Well, I got the resources to innovate Ammonia and make Gaxe and Rib Blade, plus bandages. It's something, but somehow it looks like I'm not going to make Gorment Suit anytime soon...
Hooded Knight promises to teach fighting arts for a hefty price tag. A Love Juice gives settlement twins, so status quo remains.
Hta uses shared experience to talk to Tonrun about things to come. Plan is if they both survive until the start of next year.
And Hta, Arb, Cahlona and Tonrun arm themselves for Lantern Year 3 hunt. I'm not giving up on Gorm. I want some armor, gosh and darn.
Flatter Earth has survivors lose their trail. It Whispers Your Name is the first event rolled, and since there indeed is a survivor with Marrow Hunger, he gains +1 permanent strength. And Murder is already on the timeline next year. Ha.
After hearing her name, Cahlona also finds the Portcullis Key. I could be wrong, but I believe this is first time I gain it.
Sportsman offers his advice again, and then a cloaked stranger teaches Cahlona the skill of Iron Will.
Which might have been nice, but now survivors start showdown with zero survival. Except for Tonrun, who has stone noses.
Gorm starts with... Strobe.
Only Cahlona doesn't fall, and that's because she has Iron Will. She proceeds to Gorm's blind spot and draws first blood.
Gorm wallops her back.
Arb takes a swing with Gaxe and triggers Lure Paroxysm. Didn't this just start great?
No survivors died yet. And Cahlona gives a critical wound and severs one of Gorm's kidneys.
Hta doesn't want to be any worse, and attacks with Bone Axe. Without Luck doing exactly what Ytiro should have done with +4 luck. Three wounds with one attack.
Gorm throws a fit and gets Posturing Piss, Thunder Foot and Back Slap all in one turn. This piss thing here is especially ironic, as I just innovated Ammonia. Which I could now have gained just by killing Gorm.
Settlement event is Heat Wave again, and fortunately I have no heavy gear just yet. I did get some resources to make them, so... it ain't going to be. Can't depart with heavy gear either.
Tonrun and Hta are both killed as a result of murder. Well this at least gave the settlement Love Juice.
Tondelone, the grieving First Father drank the juice and breathed in some fumes from heat wave, and all this together blessed him and the mother Iniro with Murdejy and Fumelia. Steady population of ten remains.
Settlement innovates Inner Lantern, and since there is not much use in saving the resources or developing heavy items, settlement gains: Healing Potion (just one away from Wisdom Potion. Sigh.) Knuckle Shield, Rawhide Headband and Vest, additional Monster Grease and extra noses.
So.
Next time around it'll be Butcher, then.
This time I do things a little differently.
I'll kick White Lion completely out of rotation. Even tutorial is Gorm, though I use Strange Hand hit location and prologue AI deck. But otherwise Hit Location deck is Gorm's. I won't use Gorm Climate because I'm getting a little tired of it.
Prologue went on like a dream until there was but one AI card left. Up until then no dead survivors, no permanent injuries.
But then survivors started failing their rolls. Survivor who gained the permanent strength died (how else?) and another had his foot dissolved in acid retch.
When a survivor accidentally emptied the AI deck, I couldn't risk it any longer and tossed Gorm dead with Founding Stone. This even yielded Active Thyroid for survivors.
Both Love Juices were drawn. But it wasn't that easy. First roll was a dead mother. A second juice came out as a baby, though, so both principles were triggered on Lantern Year 1. Cannibalize and Protect the Young. Because I really want to see how this combination and Collective Toil would play out.
So, first year hunt is obviously Gorm.
First survivors encounter Mourning Bull.
Now, this is a lesson I learned when I was making the animation.
I took the brain damage in. Well, of course that was a little easier because picking death principle gave all departing survivors +3 insanity.
Next head splitting pain.
Mutna the Mammoth Hunter gains Megalophobia disorder.
Slass had a danger seizure and dealt one point of damage to his body, and gained +2 insanity and became Prey.
Ines and Ytiro both have their insanity dropped to zero, which already was such.
Gorm walked a little closer, and showdown was ready to begin.
First time ever Resin Dung Ball made it's appearance in a showdown. There was also another batch of Tall Grass.
Gorm draws Thunder Foot, and then performs body check on Ines, who in turn lobs Founding Stone at the beast. My rationale here was to hope for a good critical that would ease the remainder of the showdown - as well as to get rid of Thunder Foot rather sooner than later.
Critical it was, but with no permanent effects. Gorm was knocked down, which resulted in four wounds on turn 1. I'd have been excited if prologue hadn't been that fresh in my memory.
Gorm starts hiccuping, which was exactly the bad news I was afraid of. All survivors were adjacent to Gorm. Only two got knocked down which was a relief.
Ytiro scores a critical wound with Bone Axe after Ines encourages him.
That was the extent of survivors' luck. Gorm starts rampaging, and kills Molvaneus right away. Well, he was the Prey after all. Ines barely survives the following Basic Action, and next when Ytiro fails to connect his axe to Gorm, Ines takes some bile from a retch. This causes a heavy injury to body. Only Mutna is left to act, and I really, really need to remove that Rampaging from top of AI deck. Mutna throws Founding Stone at the beast and scores a wound.
So many wasted Founding Stones.
Next Gorm strobes a little. Phew. Three cards left in AI deck. Thunder Foot, Strobe and Body Check. No too bad.
Year 2
Settlement event is Heat Wave.
First Speaker is nominated to become the Voice of Reason, but he just loses his jaw.
I'm concerned about the state of settlement's resources.
Only bone resource I received had to be used on innovation (which was Paint, by the way, so yay for that.)
Sure I got good tools, but none which would actually kill a Gorm. Full rawhide set, stone noses and fecal salve are all good. But one survivor has to go completely unarmed to the fight.
Cahrun, Hta, Ytiro and Ines set out for Lantern Year 2 hunt.
Mourning Bull wrecks everyone's brain again, and a sportsman mutters some careless whispers. But then things got... interesting. Very interesting indeed. Mask Salesman turned up and offered Death Mask for Bone Axe wielding Ytiro. Will he be able to carry the showdown with +4 luck and -4 to severe injury rolls?
Maybe. Portents at least were promising when Dead Monster and Nightmare Tree were random terrains. Ytiro would be able to strike at least twice before dying.
Well, he took a swing. Failed to wound on a reaction that caused Basic Action. This didn't call for severe injuries just yet, but it was a demoralizing start.
There was probably a forest growing on my face from all the face palms I planted there. It wasn't until fourth round when Ytiro finally scored first two wounds. Even there results were seemingly mocking. Ytiro wounds Gorm on 5+ and scores a critical hit on 6+, so obviously damage came from double fives. Oh well.
Progress was excruciating. Gorm wasn't all that adept in dealing damage either, but time was on Gorm's side.
Survivors had dealt a total of four damage when Strobe came up. Mourning Bull had indeed destroyed the brains of survivors - only Ines had a point of insanity from Stone Noses.
Hta frenzied, Cahrun fleed and Ytiro...
Ytiro died.
Yeah.
During whole showdown Ytiro scored no critical wounds despite having +4 luck. And he did not roll even a single severe injury with that -4 penalty - it was a straight up death from mortal terror. Makes me wonder if Death Mask was actually just an illusion.
Other survivors took the hint and started to wound the beast. But every remaining survivor had heavy injury levels - Cahrun sported with every single hit location having either light or heavy injury level. She was the next to die. Not that she was able to contribute much anyway - she had to use settlement's last Founding Stone to get rid of Rampaging.
But this happened when there was two AI cards left. Aggravated Bite and Body Check. Not too bad at all.
And without much of a hassle survivors dispatched those AI card. But then something happened.
For many turns survivors were not able to score a single hit - even Hta with frenzied Bone Darts was unable to do anything from Gorm's blind spot.
And when he finally did, it was Lure Paroxysm. Second time during showdown. It think Cahrun actually died to the last Paroxysm.
Killing Blow didn't come from a Strength 4 bone dart. No, it was Ines' desperate clawing with bare hands. With a critical strike.
I did get around twelve resources, though. But I count the corpses of Cahrun and Ytiro to this figure.
Year 3
Joyfully survivors return to settlement. Player wasn't all that joyful when he found out Hta had developed an unnatural hunger for the skulls of fellow humans. Skull Eater on year three and upcoming Murder on year four.
And when I do a tally of the resources, I notice I'm starved of bones again. Did Hta eat them all or what? Well, I got the resources to innovate Ammonia and make Gaxe and Rib Blade, plus bandages. It's something, but somehow it looks like I'm not going to make Gorment Suit anytime soon...
Hooded Knight promises to teach fighting arts for a hefty price tag. A Love Juice gives settlement twins, so status quo remains.
Hta uses shared experience to talk to Tonrun about things to come. Plan is if they both survive until the start of next year.
And Hta, Arb, Cahlona and Tonrun arm themselves for Lantern Year 3 hunt. I'm not giving up on Gorm. I want some armor, gosh and darn.
Flatter Earth has survivors lose their trail. It Whispers Your Name is the first event rolled, and since there indeed is a survivor with Marrow Hunger, he gains +1 permanent strength. And Murder is already on the timeline next year. Ha.
After hearing her name, Cahlona also finds the Portcullis Key. I could be wrong, but I believe this is first time I gain it.
Sportsman offers his advice again, and then a cloaked stranger teaches Cahlona the skill of Iron Will.
Which might have been nice, but now survivors start showdown with zero survival. Except for Tonrun, who has stone noses.
Gorm starts with... Strobe.
Only Cahlona doesn't fall, and that's because she has Iron Will. She proceeds to Gorm's blind spot and draws first blood.
Gorm wallops her back.
Arb takes a swing with Gaxe and triggers Lure Paroxysm. Didn't this just start great?
No survivors died yet. And Cahlona gives a critical wound and severs one of Gorm's kidneys.
Hta doesn't want to be any worse, and attacks with Bone Axe. Without Luck doing exactly what Ytiro should have done with +4 luck. Three wounds with one attack.
Gorm throws a fit and gets Posturing Piss, Thunder Foot and Back Slap all in one turn. This piss thing here is especially ironic, as I just innovated Ammonia. Which I could now have gained just by killing Gorm.
Settlement event is Heat Wave again, and fortunately I have no heavy gear just yet. I did get some resources to make them, so... it ain't going to be. Can't depart with heavy gear either.
Tonrun and Hta are both killed as a result of murder. Well this at least gave the settlement Love Juice.
Tondelone, the grieving First Father drank the juice and breathed in some fumes from heat wave, and all this together blessed him and the mother Iniro with Murdejy and Fumelia. Steady population of ten remains.
Settlement innovates Inner Lantern, and since there is not much use in saving the resources or developing heavy items, settlement gains: Healing Potion (just one away from Wisdom Potion. Sigh.) Knuckle Shield, Rawhide Headband and Vest, additional Monster Grease and extra noses.
So.
Next time around it'll be Butcher, then.
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