Maurala Epilogue

During friend's visit we finished up our long standing Kingdom Death campaign.

Lantern Year 19 Nemesis Showdown - King's Man level 2 

We brought our A-team of Moldonial, Maxaria, Brix and blue savior Hopeanuoli to smash and blast King's Man beyond recognition.

The plan was executed flawlessly. After first two or three rounds King's Man was mercilessly beaten down to it's knees with over half of its health done as damage. 

But by then, King's Man was really, really pissed off by Moldonial's clumsy but deadly attacks. It decided to show some real skill to this annoying usurper and drew Perfect Thrust after players had got too confident and didn't bother with Rawhide Headband.

And, by chance, Moldonial was standing in just the right spot to receive three severe body injuries. So, our amazing flower powered zombie that had died during Gigalion to first severe roll he had had to make, repeated this pattern of behavior and went down with the first roll.

Oopsie.

Fortunately we still had fair chances, as Maxaria was able to wound with just 2+ even when attacking from King's Man's front. She also had Arithmophilia, so her movement would never drop to zero. Vespertine Bow had decent enough chances of wounding, too, and Hopeanuoli the blue savior had a total of six blue affinities, so had the possibility to inflict three criticals in a row. 

Maxaria, however, took her sweet time in acquiring King's Step and she was not impervious to King's Man's attacks with only total evasion of +2. There was time pressure for sure. 

Hopeanuoli wasted both of his Lucernae attacks. Well, first one did two wounds but didn't do any impactful criticals effects with those - and second Lucernae attack happened when King's Man had knocked Maxaria too far away to reach him even with dash, and with movement of one Brix would not be able to reach even aim range of 9 with Vespertine Bow. Hopeanuoli checked the battle tempo locations and disappeared.

In the end, Brix was not able to hand too many brain traumas from Hymn of Silence, and left Maxaria alone to duel King's Man. It went kind of fine, although Maxaria did get disemboweled after a while. She passed those severe injury rolls admirably, but without bandages there is a strict limit on how many of those you can take even if you somehow dodge rolling 1-2. In the end Maxaria succumbed to Bleed tokens after bringing King's Man down to zero AI cards remaining.

Lantern Year 20 - Clinging Mist

Wow! Clinging Mist! Time to start new settlement, hard mode? Nope, we rolled a seven and Pudge doused himself in urine. 

Just in time to attack the Watcher. We thought it best to end the campaign in style and challenge The Watcher right away, because two full party wipes seemed too much in the long run.

Lantern Year 20 nemesis showdown: The Watcher

Pudge, Oda, Ischmo and Scheppo were to save Maurala from the ultimate existential threat. 

... and were we surprised! We had no serious survivors or great equipment, no twilight sword, nothing. And yet, turn after turn, the four heroic survivors not only survived, but even put a dent in Watcher's lanterns here and there. Thanks to ghost citizens survivors were able to shave almost half of Watcher's health away before first survivor, Vespertine Bow using Scheppo died to blood clot.

Ischmo, who had Rib Blade, lost the will to live after losing Scheppo and was the next to go. But hot damn, The Watcher  had only five health remaining by then! And we still had Counter-weighed Axe online. 

Endless Inhalation had slowly been draining survival points from survivors, not to mention the "lose two survival or die" hit locations. With his last survival points Pudge did a heroic activation by rolling a natural ten with regular attack and natural ten with surge attack, right before Oda died.

Survival-less Pudge with only a few points of insanity against The Watcher who had only three wounds remaining. Stuff of legends! Time for wonders, miracles, even!

Well, it would have certainly been epic to win The Watcher with a population of -24 or so, but it was not to be. 

After six years of sporadic play, last lantern light of Maurala settlement disappeared in a wisp of smoke. 

Monsters slain fought:

Prologue: White Lion level 0
Lantern Year 1: White Lion level 1
Lantern Year 2: White Lion level 1
Lantern Year 3: Screaming Antelope level 1
Lantern Year 4: The Butcher
Lantern Year 5: Manhunter, Gorm level 1
Lantern Year 6: Flower Knight level 1
Lantern Year 7: Gorm level 1
Lantern Year 8: Gorm level 1
Lantern Year 9: King's Man level 1
Lantern Year 10: Manhunter level 2, Flower Knight level 2
Lantern Year 11: The Hand level 1, Sunstalker level 1
Lantern Year 12: Gorm level 1
Lantern Year 13: The Hand level 1
Lantern Year 14: Screaming Antelope level 2
Lantern Year 15: Lonely Tree level 2, Screaming Antelope level 2
Lantern Year 16: Manhunter level 3, Butcher level 2
Lantern Year 17: Screaming Antelope level 3
Lantern Year 18: Gigalion level 3
Lantern Year 19: King's Man level 2
Lantern Year 20: The Watcher

Harvester, second take

 A friend visited over, and we continued our Kingdom Death campaign.

Lantern Year 17 hunt & showdown: Screaming Antelope level 3

Moldonial, Tyypi, Twyllaria and Maxaria start the hunt, which seems to be a misfortune after another. Carpet of ticks? Check. Harvester again? Check. Devoured grounds, okay, not too gross, poop and half eaten plants as far as eye can see. But right after we get piles of vomit. 

After overwhelming darkness a pit appeared below Tyypi and broke her leg. Dead bodies of four survivors were found from failed start, and then, dead antelope itself. 

Depressing.

The actual showdown was a bit lackluster thanks to the Antelope not doing much other than stomping and snorting. It did less than five actual attacks, all others were negated in one way or another. At least trample did some damage here and there, but no severe damage rolls had to be taken at all, and only one brain trauma. 

There was one threat, however. Moldonial had received Tunnel Vision from the harvester and Screaming Antelope had a couple of these reactions where attacker needed to spend an action to regain senses to attack... and Tunnel Vision lets you spend actions only to activate weapons. Moldonial was wounding the beast on 3+, and once he rolled a 2 in such a location. Fortunately axe proficiency helped there. 

Finally the Antelope was slain and it's resource deck was emptied. 

Lantern Year 18: Acid Storm

Settlement event was Acid Storm, and it gave us a scrap. 

We had only five endeavors as Maxaria had received post-traumatic stress disorder from Screaming Antelope's trap. 

Innovation choices were horrible. Partnership, Nigredo, Shadow Dancing and Face Painting. It was a toss between face painting and Nigredo, and in the end survival limit seemed a better choice. 

With tons of resources the settlement developed a few screaming armor pieces more and beast katars in double. 

1: Innovated Nigredo
2-3: Moldonial tries to use augury, fails
4: Moldonial cooks a delicious Venison Oco Busco for himself.
5: Twyllaria uses bloodletting, losing survival and gaining +1 understanding.

Hopefully we can step up the pace this year, because this campaign is going to take a while if we only play one lantern year in six months... 

...

NINJA UPDATE from 21st of May. I decided to add our tabletop simulator game into this update. 

Lantern Year 18 hunt & showdown: Gigalion level 3

Moldonial, Fatalia, Tyypi and Noitatsaved were the hunters. Hunt began easy and stayed easy. First we get Gigalion with Ground Fighting automatically on. Later, white lion cub gives a ton of resources and begins the showdown right away before Overwhelming Darkness.

And the beast just begins by doing nothing and once wounds started rolling in, it was only sizing up or doing something else inconsequential. Cheap victory? No. Gigantic Pendulous Paunch eventually had to be fished out by Moldonial, who took the job since his purpose was to die anyway.

Resulting severe injury was only a knockdown. Gigalion had taken around nine wounds or so, maybe a bit more. 

Maybe emboldened by this, Fatalia demonstrates the true meaning of her name. She went to strike Gigalion from blind spot, and obviously scored a reaction that had it move forward - taking Moldonial along with it for a second six damage grab. Although Moldonial was supposed to die anyway. Just no quite yet when there were so mane AI cards left...

A lot rested on Tyypi's shoulders now. 

Fortunately she was able to score well aimed shots at the quarry. But she had only understanding of four, meaning she had to take three brain damage each time she made one aimed attack.

Trap broke Fatalia's back, and post-trap hit locations were horrifying. Pendulous Paunch and one with basic attack with extra damage wound reaction. Soon enough Tyypi had to start taking brain traumas.

Which she did quite well, actually. It was around the fourth or fifth that finally came up as the dreaded "1-2". 

So, Fatalia's back had been broken so she was out of the game. Noitatsaved was dedicated support and armed with only Rib Blade. In the end, the often mocked "Ground Fighting" actually took out any chance of winning the day. A total party wipe!

Lantern Year 19 - Dark Trader

Urgh. Population fell down to ten, which fortunately meant two endeavors for us.

First was to innovate Family. 

Second innovation still waits resolution.

Patricide

Maurala's ancient settlement saw continuity during friend's visit. This is its story.

Lantern Year 16 special showdown - Manhunter level 3

Moldonial, Tyypi, Noitatsaved and Maxaria attempt to fight off the enslaver from far off lands. Random terrain was Dead Monster, which gave survivors a convincing headstart of, what, four or five wounds? Based on initial progress Manhunter looked easy, but then things started heating up. Moldonial was dodging stakes on 2+, but still managed to fall on his face on those with only two points of armor in each location.

Next few rounds were cautious yet useless shuffling around with only one wound per turn done to Manhunter and multiples heavy injury levels for survivors.

Hero of the showdown was once more Vespertine Bow and especially its wielder Tyypi who didn't seem to be able to roll less than critical wounds. Even more of a help was Murderous Gaze that was often picking up Tyypi, who had raised her Courage to over 9000 with Hoarder disorder and had gorm helmet with full affinities. Essentially free turn for survivors since accuracy 4+ tombstones were hitting Moldonial with 10's. 

Fight took six to seven rounds I think, and ended in triumph for the survivors not a moment too soon. Most of the survivors had spent just about all survival they had, and even Moldonial with Abyssal Sadist and Rawhide Set only had four points left.

Lantern Year 16 showdown - Butcher level 2

Same team as above finds out how Butcher is a total pushover when random target for Lantern Frenzy becomes Moldonial. The poor monster was hitting him only on 10+. The team even had time to pick broken lanterns from Nightmare Tree.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think Butcher did not land even a single hit throughout the fight. Only damage came from Butcher's Roar and the damage + bleed token part of Wild Carve. 

So, the survivors left Butcher showdown looking for more serious challenges and soon enough they found it...

Lantern Year 17: Season of the Spiderling

Twyllaria, Oda, Tyypi and Maxaria win the day and gain +1 permanent strength and weapon proficiencies thanks to Twyllaria's sanity and courage. It was a dramatic moment when Maxaria mistook his father for a giant tiny spider and slayed him, too.

1: Settlement innovates Cooking right after having to use Shank Bone to innovate Cooking. Settlement still has Beast Steak, Nightmare Tick and Fresh Acanthus, so a Screaming Antelope is going to be a priority.
2-3: Auguries for Intimacy, and settlement rejoices when a new baby Scheppo is born.
4-5: Ischmo and Scheppo dance a forbidden dance with Scheppo losing some movement and Ischmo gaining evasion.

To Fell a Tree

Lantern Year 15 special showdown - Lonely Tree level 2

 Moldonial, Tyypi, Noitatsaved and Fatalia convinced apathetic, twice contractured and dismembered Twix to eat a delicious fruit they had found. Much to everyone's surprise the treat did cheer up Twix! Kind of, because he died.

 This showdown revealed how, how do they say - dope? Synchronized Strike is when fully built with Forbidden Dance and Heart Flute. Fatalia would have been tossed around the board, as well as given 2 bleed tokens for multiple people if the reactions triggers had not been changed to failures. 

People were still drawn over the board, though, but as far as reactions and AI cards go, this was more preferable than getting damage 6 explosions in the face.

When Moldonial was thrown to the corner on turn 1, it was slightly concerning - it wouldn't be until two rounds had passed when he'd be able to deliver those bites and punches to the tree. Tyypi with her Vespertine bow and +1 speed and +1 accuracy was quite adept in missing shots and rolling four or below when wounding. But her main purpose was to check the hit locations with Cat Eye Circlet anyway.

Noitatsaved was also missing all her Rib Blade attacks. So an unlikely hero appears. Fatalia with one missing eye actually scores most wounds to the monster with Counter-Weighted Axe. But Tyypi and Moldonial want to steal their share of glory, when Moldonial finally arrives at the scene and delivers three wounds, leaving the tree with one AI card remaining. Tyypi activates, walks next to the tree and uses Heroic fighting art with Bone Axe, which was a proper thing to do. 

Fatalia did six wounds, Tyypi four, Moldonial three and the tree itself had two moods in play. 

Settlement receives five resources from the fruits, as well as Blistering Plasma Fruit. 

Lantern Year 15 hunt & showdown - Screaming Antelope level 2

Noitatsaved, Tyypi, Fatalia and Twyllaria are the nominated hunters. During hunt Twyllaria continuously loses all her survival. Hunt isn't very exciting as most results just boil down to "and then nothing happened", except that Twyllaria also finds Oda from path of brave during overwhelming darkness.

Showdown started horrendously. After first Vespertine Bow attack from Tyypi, all survivors were knocked down. Now and then Antelope makes for some scary traps. Next few rounds Antelope spends trampling and biting Fatalia, but fortunately she survives with only collapsed lung and being disemboweled.

Fight took far longer than it was supposed to - and this was all because of Infested trait that came up early. The amount of missing-to-wound-by-one was staggering. Also three or four traps wasn't much for help either.

Twyllaria was our dedicated tank, so it was her who wasn't attacked even once, or even trampled over even just one time.

But once survivors got their stuff together and quit the habit of failing hard at everything, the showdown was a pushover.

Lantern Year 16: Weird Dream

We had Hands of Heat on timeline, and since we received 17 resources and had equal amount in storage, we pretty much just got to shuffle around our resources. At least Weird Dream gave a few endeavors for us.

Settlement develops the final missing piece from Screaming armor and Leather Shield.

1: Settlement innovated Bloodletting
2: Love Juice and Augury gives settlement two new babies, Maxaria and Sibmux.
3-4: Failed Forbidden Dances for Sibyllaria and Oda
5-6: Synchronized Strike for Maxaria and Twyllaria
7: Leather for shield crafting.

Next we have Manhunter level 3 coming up. 

The Dreaded Harvester

 Lantern Year 14 hunt & showdown - Screaming Antelope level 2

Moldonial, Tyypi, Twix and Fatalia hunt for an antelope as planned back in May. I'm not sure if I have ever naturally rolled 10 on the random hunt events, but this time it did come up. The Harvester. And it gifted Fatalia with the most mysterious disorder of all - Spiral Ganglia. Moldonial received Vermin Obsession, and Tyypi became a Hoarder. Twix, on the other hand, became instantly useless when he got Apathetic. Otherwise hunt was uneventful, except Tyypi, our Vespertine Bow user, losing all survival to carpet of ticks after we had triggered Reverberating Lantern.

Showdown started with Fatalia speeding to remove Bug Patch from the board. She got a Lonely Ant from the patch - what a wonderful treasure for our Hoarder.

Vespertine Bow and Moldonial's Metal Maw were doing steady damage to Screaming Antelope, and even apathetic Twix happened to stand passively with Rib Blade somewhere in Antelope's general direction, dealing random wounds. Although survivors' defenses were lacking, only one survivor was truly suffering despite all his apathy - Twix was continously ran over by the monster, resulting in dismembered arm and double contracture. 

But the showdown went relatively fine. Twix was already ruined in the hunt phase if we're being accurate. It was a victory. One of the terrain cards was Lonely Tree, so settlement received the Lonely Fruit, too.

Lantern Year 15 - Acid Storm

Acid Storm gave settlement some scrap. Twix and Sibyllaria drank some love juice and received intimacy through Augury. As a result, Maurala's population was a lot more secure eleven than prior eight. 

Settlement endeavors:

1: Settlement innovated Bed.
2: Settlement used Augury for intimacy
3-4:  Synchronized Strike for Noitatsaved and Fatalia. 

Developments included Screaming helmet and waist armor, plus Counter-weighted Axe.

Next we might actually try Lonely Tree since it's the last year we can fight a level 2 tree. But that happens when it happens.

Year of Utter Devastation and Misery

 A friend with whom we have an ongoing Kingdom Death campaign visited, and this is what happened.

Lantern Year 11 hunt: Sunstalker level 1

What's the worst that could happen when you begin a showdown? Would it be something like losing your Vespertine Bow user on the first attack he - himself - makes? Because that's what happened.

It didn't even take that many rounds until Padoral the Twilight Sword user died, too. 

A team wipe looked certain when remaining Baby of Silence had two bleed tokens and Moldonial with destroyed back had five (with unconscious fighter) and there were still around four AI cards to chew through. Baby of Silence frenzied and as a consequence was soon killed. 

But Moldonial had bitten in two wounds, which meant that Sunstalker would fade away to solar track. Moldonial only had to tank through 9+ hitting basic actions while having zero armor and plenty of heavy damage levels. 

But hey. We don't need Vespertine Bows here in Maurala. It was a win, after all. Finally things are looking... well...

Lantern Year 12 - Gorm Climate

Aaaaugh. Gorm Climate ate Round Stone Training, because we didn't want to lose our hoarded resources. Now we need to hunt Gorm again. And at least Gorm Climate isn't Murder...

Conviction - Barbaric Principle ate away our resources anyway.

Necrotoxic Mistletoe killed four survivors.

WHEN WILL THIS MISERY END??

From a healthy population of fifteen, down to eight, lost one innovation and all resources. Gg wp. Table flip. Sob in corner. 

At least our two (2) endeavors gave Intimacy with Augury, and gave us twins. 

Moldonial ate the Hunter's Heart to cure his broken rib and destroyed back, and Sibyllaria cured her back with the leftovers.

Well hello Gorm level 1, some bitter and angry survivors are coming for you next.

Lantern Year 12 hunt - Gorm level 1 

Twix, Noitatsaved, Fatalia and Tyypi engage in Gorm Hunt, and hunt phase was more lethal than the actual showdown - all survivors received a few disorders along the way. Aichmophobia on King Spear using Twix was perhaps the most annoying.

Showdown itself was no big deal, although most of our wound rolls were 2-3... fortunately that was enough to actually wound a level 1 Gorm. Easy victory.

Lantern Year 13 - Dark Dentist

Dark Dentist pays a visit to check how Moldonial's operation has gone - which is very well indeed. Hands of Heat starve our settlement of resources even further - and we're having another go at it on the same year as Butcher level 2. 

Settlement innovates Heart Flute, breeds Twillaria and gives Synchronized Strike for a few survivors.

Lantern Year 13 Showdown - The Hand level 1

Twillaria, Butrifice, Moldonial and Fatalia challenge the Hand once more. 

We had the Diversion Tactics, which made the showdown even more of a breeze. If by breeze you mean a blood tornado.

Twillaria receives Apathetic disorder from Soft Chuckle, and because of this dies to Line Up via head explosion.

Then, The Hand has had its fun and starts to applaud. Butrifice just can't take it, and dies.

At least Moldonial, the shining star of Maurala, received the best result of +1 accuracy, strength and evasion,

Lantern Year 14 - Haunted

Moldonial and Fatalia sing a little song with the chorus of the dead. Twix finds the silver city and becomes stark raving as a result. 

Settlement innovates Petal Spiral, which was deemed the least trash of a rubbish pile of choices. The another endeavor was to put Synchronized Strike back to Moldonial.

Moldonial, Tyypi, Twix and Fatalia set out to hunt for level 2 antelope... somewhere in the future.

Ten

 Whoa, hey! It didn't take a year since Maurala settlement in the world of Kingdom Death got updated with additional misery. And we can thank Tabletop Simulator for that. It was clunky and tiresome and you couldn't play around with nifty miniatures, but at least lantern years pass.

Residents of Maurala wanted to cure Moldonial of his flower addiction, so we hunted for Flower Knight level 2 for lantern year 10. 

Hunt phase showered Moldonial, Padoral, Sibylla and... Pudge with courage and understanding and major boosts from triggered insights This was until Forest Wants What It Wants. Then, just about all survivors lost all leg armor and took a point of damage to head that ignored armor. 

Fight itself was carefully executed and it ended up with Flower Knight executed. We managed without a single severe injury roll, but only barely. Pudge and Sibylla would have started getting them on most hit locations. 

Showdown would have, again, been far more difficult if it wasn't for the almightiness of the Vespertine Bow. I'll probably house rule it as Cumbersome in my future solo playthroughs.

Anyway, survivors were victorious.

Lantern Year 11: Nickname.

Settlement event gave us a division of sorts. All my friends survivors had their name end with ... of the Antelope, and both of mine were that of the Lion. Go figure. A short moment of merriment like that was soon abolished when The Hand came and was about to carve four survivors plus Lantern Oven in two. Next session will begin with a showdown against the Hand.

Since the showdown was so successful, settlement phase was much less so. Maurala did erect Weapon Crafter, and settlement innovated Forbidden Dance and gave Synchronized Strike to Padoral and Moldonial. One augury gave us an intimacy right away, which gave us a dead mother right away. 

UPDATE:

We played The Hand showdown already, so I'm tacking it on to this blog post. It was standard procedure how you handle The Hand. Nohaus, Maximus, Baby of Silence and Moldonial challenged the godlike monster, and each survived until (and past) the applause. Maximus was left psychically scarred with Controlophobia, and Nohaus was left physically scarred with gaping chest wound, but other than that it was only success for Maurala. Baby of Silence gained +1 strength, accuracy and evasion, while Moldonial and Nohaus gained only +1 strength. Maximus was content with only surviving the clapping of applause and not dying. 

Overconfidence is a sudden and insidious killer

Alright, time to tackle this one. This one is a few years of Kingdom Death from the start of this month when a friend visited. Fortunately I made some notes about what happened.

Year 8 hunt: Snellana, Ursa, Sven and Pudge took off to hunt for a Gorm level 1 to get rid of Gorm Climate. Hunt phase was a challenge when survivors got stuck in a never-ending mudslide. We lost monster grease and skull helm that way.

But the showdown itself was a triumph. Execution was flawless - I think we got only one retch over us. And we got both Active Thyroid and Pure Light Bulb from death blow location. We had good feelings about the King's Man fight. 

Lantern Year 9 - Weird Dream.

So, we had a giant butt, realizing the thing from first list doesn't exist, and dying a pointless death.

Dream was about a giant, shining butt in the sky, lighting up darkness. The butt sings melodiously, enticing the survivor to follow the Devil's Symphony. Mesmerized, our dreaming survivor travels into the darkness. He doesn't pay attention to his surroundings, and on the edge of a cliff, in the middle of a step, the butt disappears and survivor realizes he had just conjured up the image from his subconscious. Too late to reverse the step, he falls down and dies. This wicked dream gave us only 1 extra endeavor.

We include Dung Beetle Knight. 

Two matchmakers give two intimacies, which came out as Sibylla and Watson.

Settlement innovated Saga,

1: innovated Saga, and a couple survivors get new fighting arts from Settlement Watch. Someone also receives Synchronized Strike.

We should be ready for King's Man level 1.

Ursa, Stratogda, Sven, Snellana and Butcher's Axe wreck the King's Man so hard that the survivors all die. Well, this particular settlement has been living the dream on Kingdom Death. Every showdown has been either a light challenge or a breeze. 

Heck, we even got Tall Grass terrain. I was certain the worst we'd get from this fight would be King's Curse. Well... maybe we needed this lesson in humility. 

We lost all of our best survivors, as well as the irreplaceable Butcher's Axe.

Lantern year 10: Hunt Re-enactment

Moldonial and Nameless Eetu play the showdown against Butcher. Both participants gain Fated: Butcher ability.

As we had only one Endeavor from Collective Toil, we spent it to innovate Storytelling.

And then right after the heavy loss against King's Man, we get this Manhunter level 2 knocking on our door.

Watson, Butrifice, Sibylla and Tyypi challenge the pro wrestler.

And on the second or third turn Sibylla dies. We had done like two wounds to Manhunter.

"Not this again" was thick in the air. 

But then something happened. It wasn't like the Manhunter didn't manage to do any damage - the fight was one of the more exciting ones in recent memory. Plenty of severe injuries were rolled. Tyypi got Broken Back and Butrifice got his arm broken. 

And yet survivors gained Manhunter Hat and Crimson Vial. However, Watson had to use Crimson Vial to get rid of his four bleed tokens. If we lost the Vespertine Bow user, fight would have been hopeless.'

Wounds trickled in to nemesis, and showdown ended in victory - Watson even scored Killing Blow. Two killing blows in three showdowns is rather good track record.

It's been a year and a half since Maurala was last played, so this campaign might take a while.

Maurala 5-7

A friend visited over, and we continued our Kingdom Death campaign up until the beginning of eight lantern year.

I was dead tired throughout the day when we played, so I probably won't remember that much.

Fifth year, right after encounter with Manhunter survivors took on a Gorm. Hunt went fine, and Gorm itself wasn't much of a threat. Which is surprising with Protect the Young.

Settlement event is Open Maw, where Lavishnak gain +2 courage. Armored Strangers count that Maurala is overpopulated at a size of ten, so they remove recently gained Nigredo innovation and shrug off.

Settlement receives blue savior called Hopeanuoli. Snellana, Hopeanuoli, Sven and Ursa hunt for another gorm because we already received two stout hides and stout kidneys - one more hide and we got the coveted Gormskin armor. Settlement innovated Inner Lantern, so we got the full amount of survival actions now. Yet only survival limit of five.

Hunt phase was prolific, and there were even a few extra resources from critical hits. All the survivors spent time searching through Nightmare Tree when Gorm was lame and retching on the ground. It was kind of sad. "Look, that giant baby is on it's death throes. Should we end it's suffering? No, let's all go look at that... tree."

Victory was easy. But no Stout Hides were drawn. Farewell, Gormskin dream.

Settlement event is Stranger in the Dark, who turns out to be this seducer that makes all males lovesick, unable to depart that lantern year.

Gorm Climate gave Lavishnak additional point of Courage, and Settlement Watch teaches her some Acrobatics. Innovation is Drums.

Society Principle triggers on lantern year 7. Maurala gains Collective Toil and when survivors start the hunt, settlement has a population of seventeen.

Flower Knight is the next quarry. Huntresses are Hauaeia with twilight Sword, Ursa, Lavishnak and Snellana.

During hunt survivors encounter baby and the sword, and grab & dash both. Hauaia gains sword while Lavishnak carries the baby (as she was already wielding Slow weapon.) Right after there is another hunt event which I forget that gives almost everyone extra disorders. By far this had been the most devastating hunt phase we've had. At least in this session. The roll on Forest Wants What It Wants was a "3", so all survivors started showdown with one or two bleed tokens along with negative attribute tokens.

It was interesting fight, and one that gave bit of a challenge.

But luck (tokens) were on our side and not a single heavy injury level was caused, though plenty there were plenty of light levels.

Survivors win and return to settlement.

Hauaeia should have known better than to pick up two sentient swords. Sword of Silence and Twilight Sword had come to blows and split the ground below Hauaeia. She fell to Cracks in the Ground.

Hooded Knight arrived also, and can't believe the level of inadequacy when he learns these humans have dropped the mightiest magical sword there is to a chasm. With a heavy sigh he offers to teach some fighting arts.

Sense Memory gives settlement the overpowered Vespertine Bow. We got the resources for it, we were in no short supply of population, so why not?

Two warbling blooms were planted, and they tried to make new kids right away from a gentle suggestion by matchmaking capabilities of Ursa.

They probably hadn't quite realized yet how humans do it, so their moment of intimacy breeds only death and tears. Additional attempts by more proficient baby makers brings population to eighteen.

Innovation is Song of the Brave, so now we'd be able to get rid of Gorm Climate.

We got the resources to build up Leather Worker.

Year eight hunt. Last hunt before King's Man.

Who know if we'll ever see it, since there was just over a year in between these sessions.

Five years of Maurala

There's Warmachine tournament entries coming up at one point or another, but I'll write this one up first because I believe it's less of a hassle.

I had a friend visit me during weekend, and we started a two-player campaign of Kingdom Death.

Prologue was quite brutal and dragged on for quite a while. One survivor died and we resorted to use two Founding Stones. One survivor received Broken Hip and another one received Shattered Jaw. And the long tradition continues with settlement receiving minimum amount of survivors.

Settlement takes Cannibalize as death principle.

For fun and giggles first words are uttered by the survivor who got shattered jaw. Moldovial is his name.

Settlement hunts two White Lions and one Screaming Antelope without much of an issue. Antelope was toughest

On lantern year 4 before encountering Butcher settlement is visited by Dark Dentist, who builds Metal Jaw for Moldovial. Väinö, one of the starting four survivors, perishes when dentist tries to install Monster Tooth Dentures for him. Dentist apologizes and gives Väinö's skull for settlement. That skull is used right away to fix Moldovial's shattered jaw, so I suppose a trace of Väinö will remain part of the settlement for as long as Moldovial does.

I had been trying to scare the new player about the lethality of boss fights. And on second round of the fight Butcher has one survivor's head explode, and I was certain it was the end now - dreaded trophies gave Butcher extra bleed far too early in the showdown.

Fortunately we had to encounter zero of those terrifying cards that have been ruining my own Butcher fights in the past. Forbidden Light and Embrace the Pain were the only moods that ever turned up, and Infinite Kick was removed with first wound done to Butcher.

After the fight I checked AI pile, and there was the dreaded Lantern Frenzy, but it had been wounded off before triggering. Two last AI cards Butcher had were both Hew cards, and Moldovial had +2 evasion from gear and grease.

Fight had an epic end when Butcher was killed at Death Blow location. All three remaining survivors picked +1 evasion. I was a little disappointed how easily Butcher went down. I was afraid this would give wrong impression from the deadliness of this game.

But we were using Manhunter expansion. Oh boy, a completely new nemesis that I knew nothing about. This was bound to teach fear to the new player.

Wrong.

Manhunter also died way too easily.

Murderous Gaze nearly killed one of the survivors, and Moldovial received bleeding kidneys at one point, but other than that we were doing fine with one survivor yelling +2 strength for non-deaf survivors and a second survivor checking hit locations.

But this easy victory had it's price. We used three founding stones to achieve critical wounds, so I suppose it was fair that we lost zero survivors. Sven did take Enfeebled disorder, but that was it. Moldovial, the speaker of first words and now with metal jaw also had deranged visage from now on.

Later that settlement phase Sven was nominated for intimacy and received Weak Spot disorder as a consequence. That much our life principle, Protect the Young, helped us. Pfft.

Anyway, it was here where we decided to stop playing. Next session to be within two years, I hope.

Settlement has a steady population of ten, and there are some promising rising stars among the weaklings Protect the Young regularly gives.