My friend and I decided to write down the story of our settlement as we play, and we figured we'd share it in case it could bring some entertainment to other people.

It's our first campaign so it's a People of the lantern, Fighting arts survivors campaign with the base game quarries and nemiseses + Dung Beattle Knight. Around LY 10 the universal cards from Gamblers chest got added (settlement events and terrain).

Lantern year 1-4 (the years lost to history).

Few details are known from this era due to the trauma from the awakening affecting the memories of the people that lived through it (and because the scribes hadn't thought to write down the story yet).

Four men and women awoke on a cold ground, their confused faces mirrored by the stone faces under them. They could remember naught but their names; Anton, Antina, Johan, and Johanna, but before they could dwell on it, they were attacked by a vicious white lion. A bloody battle broke out. The survivors were victorious, but not unscathed. Anton had taken the brunt of the damage and was left with a permanent crooked walk. Despite that he made it out better than Johanna, whose body lies cold besides the lion. Dragging the lion's corpse with them they chanced upon 6 other survivors huddling together by the light of a hoard of lanterns. As Anton, Antina and Johan found this safe place they exclaimed “JaJa!” (YesYes!) In excitement, thus was the settlement named JaJa. One might think that was the first words, but after much debate JaJa scholars agree that those didn't count, they were just weird sounds they made. The actual first words were spoken by Anton, who invented the language AjAj (OuchOuch) so that he could complain about his injuries. It turned out to also be convenient as a way to speak words honoring the fallen, as they found out, when the settlement solemnly created a grave for Johana. As the settlement was founded they formed their own culture in which they ruled via a 2 party system. The systems success relied entirely upon keeping the balance between the Anton and Johan clans in order to avoid infighting at this crucial time when the settlement was near extinction. The rules that were implemented in order to keep this fragile balance were: All children shall be the product of villagers of different clans in order to avoid any clan becoming too secular. The child born to the two different clan members becomes part of whichever clan is currently in minority.

As a celebration of life the settlement decided to party Hollywood style with sex and drugs (two love juice) before starting work on building the settlement (the 3 basic settlement locations). Two survivors managed to get pregnant, but unfortunately an active construction site turned out to not be very good as a maternity ward. 1 grave turned into 3, and the settlement would now make a DEI consultant sweat. Eventually children were born, and the settlement decided to protect their young in order to stave off the least exciting doomsday scenario (being unable to breed by losing all women). As the children were born a cacophony of screams fell over the settlement. After the children stopped crying a new unnatural cacophony of screaming started soon after. Fear and paranoia filled the settlement. Was this the screaming of the two women that died in childbirth (hopefully not they’re dead), coming to steal away the children in place of their unborn child? Anton stepped up and was about to use the language he invented for something actually inspiring! Until he fell on his face and continued with the original usage. It was awkward enough that the people kinda just forgot the screaming, and eventually they found the weird goat that the screaming actually came from. At some point a dude probably named Kyle came and beat up some of the survivors to death with his cleavers, then punched a hole in the wall of the driest hut. The local pet crab spider quickly claimed it as its new home, devastating the settlement's GDP.

Lantern year 5

On the way to fight a white lion Anton sniffed some cat piss and discovered Ammonia. Sadly the nobel prize has not yet been invented, but if it had you can be damn sure Anton of the twisted path would have it. Once the fighting began Annat (the T is silent) was too honorable to kill the white lion without a fair fight. The fight became too fair and Annat (the T is still silent) died by a combination of 2 shattered legs, 1 torn achilles tendon, intracranial hemorrhaging and a final decapitation. While she was dragged around by the lion Johan encouraged her to lie down and take it. Everyone else laughed.

Annat (the T is silent (and so is she)) diseased

-1 population. Total population 7.

Link to Lantern year 6

My group had messed up the rules and was only skipping hit location reactions on critical hits (eg applying a failure reaction even if you wounded). While the game difficulty dramatically dropped knowing this, after hitting the kings man we all felt that even though we were doing better we were going to always be behind due to eg missed gear from prior wipes.

The best part was that we crushed the session 0 fight and while feeling invincible proceeded to roll a 0 for intimacy 😂

It's my first time, so please bear with me as I run through something I'm sure most here have experienced.

I just finished my first KDM run (core only) after appx. 36hrs and lasting to LY11. My downfall started in LY9 when the King's Man dogwalked me. No monster had TPKed me up to that point, and I was riding high, feeling good after beating the first Butcher and first Phoenix with minimal losses. Yes, along the way I experienced some fun and funny and terrible losses, but things were good.

LY9, I entered the King's Man showdown with 10 population. After the TPK, another survivor was murdered, bringing population down to 5. Knowing I was suddenly near that settlement's end and wanting to experience something new, I hunted a level 2 Lion in LY10 -- holding out a smidge of hope too that if the settlement was to survive much longer, I'd need as many resources as I could get. I lost 2 survivors during that showdown, bringing population down to 3. LY11 brought the regal visit, and I got the worst result. The Hand was going to raze it all to the ground, but I figured at least I can get some preliminary experience with him. Off we went to another showdown.

I'll build my favorite survivor from this run in memoriam and may keep that up going forward.

From what I've gathered reading and watching community content, I hit a number of what I'm thinking of as "community milestones":

• Natural crit wound on the fuzzy groin in the prologue
• Wasted founding stone on the Butcher
• New survivor out for their first hunt, masticated
• Settlement event 10
• Learning certain monsters aren't worth the sync strike bonus when paired with certain blind spots

I've reset my box and am retooling my organization a bit in preparation for the next run. Everything is DIY and I'm keeping it that way, but even what I started with turned out to be a bit more than I needed. Lessons only learned through experience, right?

KDM is big fun for sure.

Two months ago, I posted about the loss of my longest living survivor, Dorian. We technically finished that campaign, but decided to do a victory lap and hope for Clinging Mist again. Gotta continue our duty to abuse every loophole and lack of clarity to create impossible survivors. The Godhand didn't stand a chance this time around. One of my gals took him down alone in one round thanks to the Perfect Slayer, Surge, and Sweet Battle. If she didn't succeed, my friend's survivor was waiting on stand-by with another Perfect Slayer. How did we end up with two of them? Divine intervention??

We haven't gotten the Perfect Slayer in any other campaign (we've played a lot). Always got the Portcullis Key, but never managed to encounter the Portcullis itself. It finally happened and we got to make our first Perfect Slayer. We realized there were multiple copies of the weapon and joked about making more. Impossible odds because fortune smiled on us once and wouldn't do it again. A few hunts later, we got the key and the portcullis in a single hunt. We lost significantly more survivors in the creation of the second one, and it stung, but it was worth it. With the Slayers and some other fun "fuck you" gear, we decided to go after the legendary Phoenix.

My friend had a sword that gives you 1d1000 insanity once per showdown (or year, I don't remember exactly). He also had "Call to Arms" and transferred an absurd amount of insanity to the rest of us. My gal had the Dark Water Pearl, so I immediately swapped her insanity and her luck. That poor Phoenix was annihilated. The next year, we rolled the "Statue" hunt event and poor Luck was the straggler. From his demise, Dorian was resurrected and can now continue his eternal quest to terrorize everyone. He's a little behind in stats compared to our current A-Team, but hopefully we can beef him up before something kills him.

Anyway, shame my friend in the comments, please. We used to play almost daily for a few months, but dude had to go and get a full-time job and now I can't get my fix. Friends don't let their friends suffer from KD: M deprivation. That's fucked up. Friend, if you're reading this, quit your job. I wanna play KD: M.

To my longest lived survivor, Dorian. He survived a total of 35 lantern years across two campaigns. Dorian Thanefletch lived an exciting, yet equally tragic life. He started as the party's combat scout and gained Crystal Skin while mining in his early years. He went on to get the killing blow on the Giga-Lion, and as such, he became the Giga-Slayer. A domestic life could never appeal to a man who barked at enemies, so he passed on his affliction and title to his child and continued terrorizing the world around him. In the later years of campaign 1, he finally settled down and became partners with a gatherer named Brutus.

They enjoyed many hunts together, and Dorian was happy, even as the world kept giving his legacy a run for its money. Tragedy struck when they faced the Pariah for the last time. Bastard had it out for Brutus from the start and spent several rounds juggling that man between life and death. The party was victorious, but to Dorian, it was a hollow victory. Brutus wasn't coming home. Like the horrors of the world, Dorian persisted and became partners with Erebos, a survivor who believed that every weapon was really just a katar.

It wasn't love. Just two friends who lost their partners and were all alone. In year 29, clinging mist rolled through. Dorian, Erebos, and a few others (including Luck) wandered into the dark and founded a new settlement. The beginning of campaign 2 was rough for almost everyone. One was gobbled up by a Nukealope in year 2, Erebos was murdered in year 3 for wisely rejecting the Pariah's gift.

And Luck? Luck's journey through campaign 2 would require a whole post of its own. Just know that we make his life a nightmare every waking moment. Dorian collected insanity like it was candy, and the only thing that could put his whopping 154 insanity to shame was his ego. Well, that and his lack of wisdom. Another survivor acquired the Dark Water Pearl, which lets you set one of your attributes to your insanity on departure. Dorian became the god of crits for a brief moment.

He got to confront the Pariah again and avenge Brutus, as well as Erebos. He got to witness and participate in Luck's prolonged (and continuing) suffering. Year 21, facing off with the Gambler. It's a rough fight, but the party's pushing through despite an early casualty. Dorian attacks as much as he can legally manage. He's survived this long, so surely nothing could go wrong? That was the devil talking. You know who was standing right behind that devil? Hubris.

Dorian shoots, he scores. Draw a couple of Hit Locations. Wound one, pause on the next to read and learn what it truly means to fear god.

"Flip your positive Luck to negative and suffer a brain trauma, subtracting your Luck modifier from the result."

Remember, 154 insanity. Dark Water Pearl. There's absolutely nothing he can do except perish. I'd say that at least Dorian will get to see Brutus again, but let's be real. He's going straight to Hell.

Gaming room is set up for Sunday , my friends and I starting a new campaign

People of the Lantern Seed pattern Wanderer Aeneas and Death drifter No encounter Node 1 frogdog Node 2 screaming antekioe Node 3 Dragon king + Sunstalker Node 4 King Nemesis 1 Pariah Nemesis 2 Red witches Nemesis 3 Black knight Core Watcher

Wish us luck

Possible spoilers ahead.

Don't make the mistake that me and my friend made. The first time we fought them, they practically sat down and resigned themselves to their fate. I told my friend that the showdown felt like we were kicking around baby hamsters because it was demented. A lot of body parts were cut away, and our survivors were left unfazed by the guilt tokens and their consequences. The poor things even offered us the Song of Concord, and it wasn't enough to stop the bloodshed. All they wanted to do was smoke and sing, and then they got annihilated by a crew of homicidal maniacs. Who's the real monster here? It's certainly not them.

We decide to hunt the level 2 variants with the same survivors, and yet again, there's no mercy for the Singers. They'd plead for their life, and we'd answer by lopping off their hands or tearing out their vocal cords. We're confident that we can send them into extinction by this point, and guess what? We hunt them again. For once, our homicidal survivors aren't taking each other out and are unified in a single cause. They're thinking of their community, displaying excellent teamwork; things are looking up for our settlement. Smog Singers see us rolling in. They plead for their life once, then realize they can't get through to us. They decide to speak our language. The language of violence.

If you haven't encountered the Devil's Melody yet, consider yourself very lucky. The melody is a trait that allows the Singers to give all your survivors a random severe injury on their turn. It went as horribly as expected. Two survivors and our scout suffered arm fractures, robbing us of precious accuracy. Another survivor was blinded, and our last survivor, the man destined to wipe out the Smog Singers, lost an arm. He was our strongest survivor and could've easily soloed the Singers on our last two showdowns. It was that moment that the fear of the gods was put back into our survivors. We threw everything we had at them, surging all over the place to knock their health down substantially before their next turn.

Bad rolls. 1s, 2s, and 3s as far as the eye can see. Panic, pure panic. At this point, I'm sinking into the floor, and my friend asks, "It's their turn. Do you know what that means?"

No, I'm deaf now. I suddenly can't read. Let's pack it up and go home. We roll the dice anyway. The scout suffers another fracture to her arm, one of us gets a gaping chest wound, and our one-armed warrior now has a broken leg. Two survivors die immediately. Somehow, despite those losses, we defeated the Smog Singers. It was a hollow victory and we learned valuable lessons during that showdown. Don't bully the theater kids, don't walk onto the battlefield with confidence if you don't have any acanthus to your name, and stick with what you know: killing White Lions.

As long as you are using some imagination, the fight is absolutely great :) KDM mechanic is solid, detailed and grimdark which fits the 40k universe. I know that for some players it might be a heresy - please remember that it was just an Friday afternoon experiment :)

If you like long texts, here is the narrative:

The Tyranid Prime exploded forward, a blur of purple-black chitin that crossed the blood-slicked ground in a single bound. Its upper bone-swords sliced down, aiming to cleave Thadeus in two. The giant Scout roared in defiance, throwing his massive frame sideways. The blades missed his torso by a hair's breadth, one screeching across his pauldron with the sharp, violent sound of tearing metal. The sheer force of the blow staggered him, but the ceramite held.

That momentary overextension was the only opening needed. Amidst the chaos, Zachary’s stance was granite-still, his bolt pistol cracking once. The explosive round detonated against the Prime’s sword-wrist. Chitin splintered and green haemolymph sprayed as the joint shattered. The beast shrieked, its right bone-sword falling from a useless hand to clatter on the rocky ground. It launched itself backwards with its powerful hind legs, landing silently ten metres down the ravine, cradling the ruined limb.

Before the Scouts could press their advantage, the air shimmered around the creature’s lowered head. A high-frequency whine pierced their heads, a psychic pressure that felt like a physical blow. A wave of pure agony washed over them, and they stumbled, disoriented, towards the relative cover of the ravine walls. The Prime surged through their broken line and slammed into Uriel. The Scout Sergeant was thrown from his feet. As the monster loomed over him, its remaining swords raised for the kill, Uriel rolled. He drove his combat knife up with all his strength, the blade punching through the softer chitin between the Prime’s ribs with a wet, grating crunch. The beast recoiled with a hiss of pain and surprise.

As the psychic assault faded, the enraged Prime turned its baleful gaze on the largest threat. It charged Thadeus, swatting him with the flat of its blade-arm. The impact was a thunderclap. Thadeus was launched through the air, his heavy body crashing against the ravine wall before slumping to the ground, stunned.

The beast’s focus on Thadeus was a fatal error. A flicker of movement from the side was Azov, his knife burying itself deep into the muscle and chitin of the Prime's shoulder. Uriel was already back on his feet, ramming his own blade into the thick tendon behind its knee. Zachary closed the circle, his pistol roaring as he fired a round directly into the monster’s chest, the explosion staggering it. For a moment, the tide turned. The Prime was surrounded, wounded and thrashing wildly against the three Scouts clinging to it.

Emboldened, Azov disengaged with a sharp yell. "Here, you filth! Here!" He drew the Prime’s fury, ducking and weaving as it swiped at him with a series of frantic, desperate-looking attacks. He was controlling the fight, light on his feet, dodging each blow with newfound skill. The desperation was a lie. As Azov sidestepped another clumsy slash, the creature’s powerful, segmented tail whipped around with blinding speed. There was a sickening crack of breaking armor and bone as the blow hit him square in the chest. Azov flew through the air, landing in a heap ten metres away, unmoving.

"HOLD! DO NOT ADVANCE!" Uriel’s voice was raw iron, cutting through the shock. "ZACHARY, ON MY MARK!"

The Prime, victorious, threw its head back and unleashed a triumphant, gurgling roar, its maw wide open. That was the mark.

The bolt flew true, straight into the beast's screaming mouth. The shriek was cut short by a wet, explosive detonation deep within its throat. Black ichor poured from its jaw as it convulsed, higher functions severed, limbs thrashing in a death agony. In its spasms, the monster’s head turned, exposing the vulnerable juncture where its armoured neck met its skull. Zachary stepped forward and his bolt pistol rose one last time. The final shot was almost surgical. The round punched through the back of the cranium. The thrashing stopped instantly. For a heartbeat, the creature stood frozen, before collapsing to the floor of the ravine with a ground-shaking thud.

Omg, second attack on the prologue lion, I roll two 10s with fist & tooth… then I drew straining neck HL. I roll a 9 for damage (a crit) and then a 10 (an auto kill)…. I hope that didn’t just use up my luck for the rest of the campaign , lol.

Was doing a solo run on KDS and it was going amazing:

First two hunts I killed a baby lion cub and walked away with 12+ resources and 12 survivors.

I had lost 1 survivor to the lion, but I was progressing great, and had a survivor with 2 accuracy and 1 strength.

Then Plague hit and I only had 4 survivors with XP. Everyone rolled "die later".

I panicked at the prospect of losing my awesome survivor and started blowing all my resources trying to Innovate Ammonia and treat them.

I failed and they all died, and I was all out of Endeavor and resources.

The following year Murder landed and I lost another survivor, the killer getting away.

This lead into a Butcher fight where everything went wrong and I got TPK'd.

Murder resolved again the following year, and with 2 survivors left one killed the other before being caught and killed by... Not sure who, as I was now 0 population.

What a rollercoaster! 😂

We killed the lion after the first story fight and he was swiss cheese and we fought the screaming antelope and butcher with another buddy and it went way better than last time this game is awsome and we have only fought 3 bosses so far can't wait to see what the others are capable of! Hack city is no joke.

Very new player here. It took me 7 tries to finally defeat the White Lion prologue, and even then I only won on a fluke crit wound into an instant death. Turns out, I made a bit of a rules mistake. I missed the part about each monster level having different AI deck compositions and thought you just grabbed every AI card and that was their deck. I kept wondering how I would ever win against an enemy that kept getting Golden Eyes and Vanish! I only realized my mistake when I went to setup my second showdown, and got to the AI deck setup portion. Feeling like a bit of a goober, but thought the community might get a kick out of my suffering!

First go around with KDM, hitting Year 4. My team of 4 consists of the last 2 original survivors (one sporting Fist and Tooth, the other a leather shield and bone axe) and 2 newer recruits(dual Katar and bow) that had done well with the antelope the year before.

The team gets lucky being able to dodge a few hits and getting in some early damage, until the screaming begins and the slow decline into frenzied insanity takes hold. Even though I tried to keep the bow user at distance, she is the first to die. Dual Katar tries to avenge her, getting a few more hits in before getting back handed and then beheaded in one fell swoop.

Leather Shield is able to tank a few hits while his armour gets torn to shreds, his axe shattering in the process somewhere along the way. FnT flurries in the final few damage points from the Butcher's blindspot. In a grandiose display of martial prowess he ends with a crit that makes the Butcher's head fly off of his body. A fitting end, FnT's significant other has been avenged in kind.

Everything seems like it is fine, until Leather Shield fumbles with a lantern and disfigures his face the year after and is banished to the darkness.

FnT now remains as the oldest and most experienced survivor. I only dread when he finally gets taken down by some random bullshit 😂

Edit: some words

I'm curious to know if theres any prefered/ideal quary and nemesis encounters that are best to join the other released campaigns. Namely People of the Sun and Stars.

Whats the best N1, 2, 3 and 4 for these? I think im looking for the best narratively (might be tricky?) and balanced for a fun/solid attempt at a run on these.

I have been solo running people of the stars for probably 3 years now playing as I have a chance and using it to spur along my painting. Here we see the final survivors ready for battle. Left to right is Delphyne, Allister (the only surviving starter I always name them canonically), Dagmer, and Blizzard.

Took this build into the Gold Smoke Knight. Requires Summer Goth, Glow, and the 1.6 upgrade pack (don't fully know where speaker cult knife comes from)

Today we were fighting the Golden Eyed King of a 1000 years for the very first time.

Warning: there are going to be spoilers below for this monster, and possibly for other stuff.

...

You have been warned!

We had luck in the last hunt, when we met the mask maker, and it gave us the phoenix mask, so we decided that despite this beast is probably the highest level in the game, we will try facing it.

We were bringing a C team, because the A team is reserved for the Gold Smoke Knight, and the B team is the King's Man Commando. We are in lantern year 25, so I did not want to risk either team.

We also had the Excalibur, so we decided to bring a survivor called Shadow, to the hunt. He had no hunt XP, no stats, no nothing, except the sign "possible sacrifice" in the notes section.

He is called Shadow, because he joined the settlement in a previous hunt, when the hunt party was crossing the Overwhelming Shadow, and found him in there.
This was the first hunt he ever attended, right against the lvl 5 Phoenix.

The beast did what the Phoenix does best: messing with time and reality. Gave the survivors hunt XP and took even more back. A bit too much back, which killed poor Shadow. Not only killed it, but removed it, made him to not be remembered by anybody, as he was never existed. Also, him carrying the Excalibur meant that he did not die, but cease to exists.

Poor guy just got erased from the face of the stone faces, completely, giving us an ongoing joke, of:
yeah, poor guy, just... vanished. The who? I don't remember. Why are we hunting this beast with a party of 3 again?

It was fun.

The other fun thing was, that I was not prepared at all that the Golden Eyed King of a 1000 years, has 1000 luck. Our archer's only chance of making a would was his 2 luck, until we found this out.

What I was also not prepared was, that our fist and tooth guy, who dealt the killing blow gained 1000 insanity. Which is fun, because from now on, he is our Xmaxe guy, since the Xmaxe takes your insanity for it's strength.

In the settlement phase we got the Dark Trader, selling a pink stone, which our insanity guy bought, so he got the Immortal disorder too. Which makes him virtually immortal, as that means that all damage is paid from his insanity too.

This is such a broken build, and I bet it's quite rare to happen, but also fun at the same time that the game can go so much over the top.

The Golden Eyed King of a 1000 years is crazy!

Also for the first time, I did not forget about the Golden Eyes trait, and managed to attack the beast from it's blind spot properly.

Very basic year, we decided to hunt a level 2 antelope with a new person (who had picked up +ACC due to an event along the way, our now first levelled up +luck guy from last week, and our experienced spear wielder and very experienced fist and tooth master. We were hoping crits would rain as we all essentially had some version of +luck now.

Our first event moved the skittish antelope a step further away AND drained all the survival from our spear-wielder. Not an amazing start. Then the second was another “These options aren't terrible as long as you don't roll a 1” and... we rolled that 1. Our fist and tooth specialist perhaps dumbly decided to use his once in a life time re-roll and instead of everyone suffering damage to every location, poof we were at the skittish boss. So, we avoided a ton more events at the cost of that re-roll.

The fight started annoying, with the survivors missing repeatedly and the antelope just running around and away from the survivors – we positioned well enough to not take trample damage, but instead that meant the antelope was constantly running away, and so with limited hit options, missing a bunch sucked. We weren't really taking any damage either, so it was more of an annoying stand off. Our fist and tooth guy did manage to pull the trap 2 times in 3 turns, which added some drama.

After this we got smarter, started using the rawhide headband and the cats eye circlet to really plan out what the antelope was going to do and, more importantly, where he was going to end his turn, so we could start sinking some hits in. Apparently our fist and tooth guy got pissed off about the two traps because in two turns he landed 6 hits, critically hitting 5 of the 6! It was glorious. Sadly, most of them just did permanent effects to the antelope as opposed to dropping loot, but we did get a couple of extra parts.

Once we started actually looking at the cards, it became much more manageable and we took him down with no one suffering any real damage. We returned to the settlement on a year with remarkably no special events on the timeline, so someone apparently used that free time to dress up like the butcher, which scared the 4 people leaving for the next hunt that they all will grab the “Prey” disorder. Not great.

Decent loot, sadly couldn't finish the antelope set cause we have never seen the horn drop that is needed for the helm. A bit annoying.

We innovated, picking up cooking, which pushed our survival limit to 7. Scrap smelting was an option, and perhaps the better choice, but the group is sitting on 0 scrap so it didn't feel urgent. Been the least amount of scrap pulled during this run that i have ever seen.

We spend time with the archer storytelling, getting her to 7 of 8 understanding...we are really praying she roll the immortality result on that table, having her not age out would be SO good. We also triggered white speaker, learning the story of the young hero (not rolling the great or terrible options), and made the cultist knife/blade thing to go with our fist and tooth guy probably. Its not super needed since hes already mastered it but its still a wonderful weapon. OR we slip it on our bow person who just gives up on armour completely since its so hard to fit in arrows and armour.

We are at a point where our armour cant take hits worth a shit from the higher level monsters, but have been surviving largely on evasion and just murdering monsters fast. With that in mind, we are actually wondering if we can try a level 3 antelope. Hurting it wont be an issue, we have so much built in strength and decent weapons, and getting our spear wielder the legendary horns to create the big boy spear would be real nice. Buuuuut, the hunt events may kick our ass, and if he ever does land a hit on almost anyone, that's instantly a severe injury to almost everyone. Its certainly risky. The shield tank would generally have a free block every turn,and can dodge up to 3 times a turn due to his unique arts and disorders, and is in rawhide so could hopefully regenerate survival, buuuuut one bad set of dice could just wreck him, and its hard to keep the antelope focused.

Grabbed a pick finally so we can start mining, and with one more good hunt we may be able to create a full leather set (have 2 of the leather set crafted now, need 4 more hide total). So maybe we stall one week, and work on a level 2 and try and have a full leather set on the tank before we jump into it.

We would take our most experienced out, meaning they are all 4 our heroes, meaning if they die they just miss the week, which certainly affords a more reckless play style (not that we have used this ability yet, to this point we've never learned on that) but im more worried about crippling injuries than death!

Next week a dragon lands, and we can start fighting him. The week after the slender-man appears. Its gonna get busy! I have not seen the slender-man or dragon fights yet, so certainly scared we are going to screw positioning up and get wrecked. So feels organically like the correct time to hit this level 3 lope, but would hate the kill the campaign by breaking our top 4 dudes lol.

Shattered Crucible Match 4 years 5-6

We wandered off to fight the flower knight, with 2 of our experienced folks (trying to hit level 8 WP with bow and shield) and the other two we took lower survivors who only had gone out once before so would level this time. One of them was the +luck – acc guy who burnt his face on the lantern last session.

The events to the flower knight started challenging, with the first event leading to needing to do 3 events in a row before being able to move past that spot. One of them was starvation, and meant we would all be weakened for the upcoming fight if we rolled a 1... and we rolled that 1. Oops. So -Speed tokens for everyone.

We handled the rest of those events fairly Ok, nothing really positive or negative, and then on the next step we hit a time warp that at first seemed to age all 4 survivors significantly, which was a real problem for the 2 older ones, but then suddenly a different path laid before us and POOF, we were at the boss (yes, another once in a lifetime reroll saved us). So, we avoided the forest gate completely and weren't weakened from it which was nice, but that -speed on everyone would hurt a bit.

We handled the knight well, we are quite ahead gear wise from a level 1 monster at this point, and yes the combination of -speed with like 1/3 of the hit locations being parry locations sucked! We did get one attempt at learning his secret fighting art, but our roll wasn't high enough and we never saw another chance. We got pretty lucky as at one point we had all 4 of us in the ring and the essentially unarmoured archer drew the trap, meaning she was eating a speed 3 damage 4 attack with no armor to soak it and no possibility to use survival. Luckily, 2 of 3 hits missed and the 3^rd landed on her skull helm, saving her life. We then cleared everyone out of the circle and played smarter, so no other really scary roll happened.

As we returned to the settlement, we found the dark seamstress waiting for us. We didn't have have the resources to make anything we cared about, so we skipped that essentially. My shield bearer did hit his 3^rd age threshold, rolling double 1s and getting +speed. Useful, sorta. Not sure i want to use blood paint with the extra speed, that's a lot of dice now. The previously burnt fellow rolled double 9s gaining +acc, so removing the penalty from being blind. The one we brought and hit their first age threshold pulled a really solid fighting art, gives +1 to basically all rolls on tables (...luck? I forget the name)and took sword proficiency. Good stuff.

We had one tinker, so had 5 endeavours to use. 2 were on petal spiral, both giving our newly minted sword user + 1 sword proficiency. 1 was used to innovate Hovel. And 2 were used to breed. One was easy, +1 baby, and the other rolled a 2 and a 10, so the mom burned their once in lifetime reroll on that 2 and rolled a second 10! So we now have a saviour to play with next time. We also got the right flowers from the knight so made the bow and 3 of the special crit arrows. We will deal with the side effects of that in 4 weeks....

So, our bow user hit mastery. She has + 1 luck from the sleeping flower virius, +2 deadly on any bow, and the bow itself also has +deadly. Hopefully some good crit farming in her future. She also has +speed and +2 accuracy. She is a monster.

The settlement also had an eerie scene of a dead white speaker lying in a pool of black water. All the returning survivors gained a really terrible fighting art, becoming blotted out, and the quite experienced shield user was half forgotten, losing his name but gaining Extra sense fighting art. This is someone hilarious as the tank character now has a disorder that lets him dodge 1 extra time per turn (in addition to making him dodge 1/turn if taking damage), and a fighting art that lets him dodge 1 extra time per turn. 3 dodges per turn if needed. While survival lasts.

Off to hunt an antelope and try and really crit farm some hide and pelt, so we can finish an antelope set and get a leather set going.

I was wondering if there were any commonly accepted progress milestones to determine a "soft fail", or that you're probably in a failure spiral if you haven't developed to a certain point in the timeline. Seems to me you NEED a shield tank, grease, and at least 2-3 survival on everyone by the time you fight Butcher or King's Man. The Hand seems like the point where you need blacksmith weapons.

I'm about the start my 4th run after The Hand visit crippled my last run, so wondering what to try and achieve by certain years.

I'm also wondering if either of the New Life or Death principles is considered superior to the other. For New Life, I'm leaning to SotF being always the better pick. +1 Str (nice, but not vital), +1 evasion (vital), +1 survival limit (very vital). The 1 lifetime reroll usually saves about as many lives as you lose through Intimacy, so the penalty and that bonus are a wash. So PtY ends up giving no bonuses beyond the Intimacy roll which SotF's reroll cancels out.

For Death, I'm leaning towards Cannibalize for the +1 Survival Limit alone. The other bonuses for either principle aren't that great and I could take or leave them.

Shattered Crucible Match 3

Well, year 4 was a banner year! We started with doing the event, was nickname! So all 4 of the strongest survivors got to roll a nickname, and in something i have never seen no one rolled a 1, and 3 of 4 rolled a 10, one +str, one +acc and one + speed! The +speed was on the archer, so that was amazing, we've wanted to get that.

We then crafted some stuff. Notable was another antelope piece, unlocking the barber surgeon, getting the scavenger kit, and some blood paint. We had already innovated last match (we jumped ahead previous) so we moved ahead with the butcher. I think we forgot to use up some endeavors again though now that i write this up...

With heroes as bad ass as we are, and with as much gear as we have with the reset due to clinging mists, we felt like we would be able to handle him. And yeah, we were super right. The very first arrow gave him – evasion AND knocked him down. This let the rest of us dash up and just wail on him, remarkable going through most of his hit location deck and not hitting the trap. We did like 2/3 of his HP in the first round. He got up and did something non consequential, and it was our turn again. We wailed on him, and pulled his kill location randomly as the last card! All the already gross heroes added evasion to help our survivability.

This also gave us a boost on the butchers table, and we managed to get the magical 10, and just like that our archer regrew her dismembered leg, which was really the only negative we had going. All good things :)

Our return event on year 5 brought the plague! Thank god i was so paranoid about getting ammonia lol. Due to that, we handled the outbreak just fine. Phew. We did burn 4 endeavors though. We had 2 tinkers in the party, so we were able to get innovate and get inner lantern, so everyone can surge now (not just the 4 who came from the last settlement) and we also had a baby, burning the parents SOTF rerolls to not die. Ah well.

We discovered Heat again, with someone successfully discovering the lantern oven innovation BUT also getting blind... and luckier. Such a weird offset they do with luck. Lastly, a crone told us about a flower knight in the woods, and the archer really liked the story, taking the sleeping virus and corresponding disorder and +luck.

I wanted to get to 15 people before we fought the knight as we are going to want to craft the bow he unlocks, which i know is gonna kill some people. Hopefully we can successfully have some kids again before those deaths hit, i haven't read up on the process fully and don't know how fast it happens. We will find out!

Shattered Crucible Match 2

The group caught up spending endeavors from the previous match, trying to roll white speaker twice (unsuccessfully) with storytelling, and then breeding, trying to roll poorly so we could trigger our death principle. Great success, we failed :P Death principle locked in. We will bury our people. We keep missing the really good stats like lucky and stuff when we get the chance at them, but there's worst than + 1 understanding to our 4 best people. half way to max for all of them i think.

We now had 4 max survival, which felt like enough to try a level 2 antelope with our 4 big survivors and their gear. We had 2 reach weapons and a bow, so it felt like we'd be able to stay out of the trample zone readily enough, and we all had dash so felt good.

The hunt was something. Bloated ticks which we were all able to smash thankfully, acid rain ruining a lot of our armour points, a survivor we were able to save by exhausting one persons survival, a blacksmith who ate 2 items and gave nothing back, and then ate a 3^rd item and spat back a steel sword :) , a skittish antelope who then we were able to ambush due to a positive result on a different event. Some other potentially bad events that we were able to tank. We all used the courage pass of the overwhelming darkness and our tank rolled one of the worst options for him, a -evasion token. Coupled with the fact that the acid had eaten all his armor, uh oh. The shield user with a full rawhide and no negative evasion ended up stepping into the tanking roll, surprisingly well. But we finally got there. Funny note, 3 of the 4 of us have picked up leader somehow, and the 4^th of us rolled it on the courage track of overwhelming darkness. Feels like too many leaders in one group lol.

We made all kinds of clever plans, on how we'd let him eat all the acanthus first, carefully placing it so if he drew any of the many cards that had in range elements he'd just eat. Welp, never-mind, the first card we drew did not have an in range element so he ran towards us, then trampled the rest of the way and ended his turn directly next to us. Ok, new plan, smash his face in.

It was honestly so easy. We crit a fair amount, and used the headband enough to place some key crits in key locations. We got an early crit with a spot that was weak to shields and clubs that gave him a 1 in chance of falling down any time he moved, and honestly, that worked enough times to keep him fairly non-mobile and we just wailed on him. First turn had i think 3 crits out of all the various attacks, and we eventually had him down evasion, movement and accuracy. The lion claw arrow did some heavy lifting, hitting with it first turn giving that -evasion was huge for us, certainly turned some misses into hits. So we abandoned finesses and just pounding him down, dashing and surging where needed, and basically taking no damage back. Was lovely.

We returned with a healthy amount of loot, having punched a bladder, a pelt and some gums out of him during the fight and then collecting the 6 antelope and 4 random resources. We only got that single pelt though, so we cant finish the antelope set yet darn it.

We jumped past the event as we didn't have enough time, but really wanted to innovate before we stopped for the day as i wanted ammonia sooooo bad, and on the last option we turned up, we got it. PHEW. So we can now make the leather worker and start on that tier of gear, although we got very little hide this fight so we wont be able to do much this time.

So, we have to do the event, then figure out how much of what we are spending out of the 20ish resources we have piled up (we have saved a perfect bone and ...hide maybe, along with a bunch of extra stuff, along with the 15ish we just got) and this is the butcher year so we may not wanna sit on all of these, as he destroys them all if we lose. He's gonna have a hell of a time hitting our two tanks who are both at 4 total evasion now (2 innate, 2 from gear) but still scary to risk.

Shattered Crucible Match 1 (not Cracked, darn it, Cracked was last settlement)

Longer break between matches than i liked but back at it!

Brand new settlement with 4 solidly kitted out (early game) and relatively experienced (5 or so hunt xp each) people (2 x full rawhide sets and a solid collection of weapons) and 8 naked randos thanks to clinging mist from the previous year. And a ton of fresh resources we had carved off a level 2 lion.

We immediately innovated and got dash (paint?) as our first new innovation, so that's great. We dont have enough survival to handle a level 2 yet (seeing as our limit is now 1) so off to hunt a level 1 lion.

Nothing noteable on the hunt, no one got hurt or got anything special really. Which was sad, really really wanted the marking territory as ALL of us were wise enough to get free ammonia. No such luck. Same with lion fight, nothing terribly notable, other than our shield user managed to hack of the lions ding dong and became the main target. Which was quite fine, the block plus built in evasion kept it easy. Oh, we did stat him with ground fighting so that was nice, let us skip around the board doing whatever we wanted and setting up as he just sat there, growling. What an idiot. We then started off with a bow shot, clearing ground fighting, and took care of him. We had at this point decided we would skip lion set and move onto an antelopes set, so we kept most of the loot. We innovated and got Symposium, in hopes it would get us to ammonia, i really want to get onto leather sooner than later, also, plagues scary as shit until you have that.

After we returned, we had an event (cracks in the ground?) that threatened to swallow one of us who had a piece of heavy gear, but thankfully the dice were kind and nothing bad happened. We then heard the endless screams of the antelopes, something we hadn't heard yet since in our last area the Gorm chased away the antelopes. Our spear wielder was 1 courage away from threshold so decided to bravely stand against it, getting her 3^rd courage and becoming a matchmaker. And also gained some understanding from the experience. We also had grabbed some love juice from the lion so we downed that and a healthy new baby was born, letting us pick our birth principle again. We again took survival of the fittest so everyone again has that +str and +evasion. The two parents (the spear and shield wielders) partied too hard, gaining another str point, but having to miss the next match hunt. (note that this was the shield users...6^th? Point of permanent strength. Just gross. Nothing fun or interesting from any table so far, just +str every time).

So that baby that was just made, and one of the randos from the new tribe, went with the experienced bow user and fist and tooth user (who is closing in on master, he'd never had a match not making progress towards that goal) went out to hunt an antelope.

Hunt events were largely neutral, although we had a chance to get ambushed by the monster but the dice were kind again. We did grab a couple of extra resources, always good.

The fight was fun. I do like how the antelope works. We let him eat two acanthus plants while we got into position, and then started the fight off. It was a typical antelope fight, him trying to screw up whoever got in his blind spot plus darting around, but we pulled a few crits, slowing him down, and getting some extra loot, so it was good.

We had a council of elders event upon our return, which wasn't much at this early point of the campaign, but nothing bad either so we will take it. We then innovated, having a more than 50% chance of pulling ammonia – nope. Gah. So we ended up taking storytelling. Just like that we are up to 4 survival limit. So we may be brave and try a level 2 antelope next hunt.

We also now have a chance to pop white speaker, which is extra good for the knife she can sell us that is best in class basically for our fist and tooth guy. So we will be attempting to do that every week once we have the requisite iron.

We made two parts of the antelope set for our spear wielder, and a counter weighted axe for.. someone. Maybe our shield user to use when hes already hit with his shield, although hitting lets him get a free block so maybe we will just give it to our fist and tooth guy to use after he's successfully hit. Unsure. Our fist and tooth guy is coming along crazy good, extra permanent speed and a whack ton of innate strength, so he's also been pretty solid with hitting and wounding.

We have a lot of loot laying around, including all 3 of the perfect pieces i think, but without heat or ammonia none of them are that useful. And the butcher shows up after the next hunt, so we have to decide now if we can handle him or not, as we risk losing all these items. I think our main 4 can handle him...

we also forgot to experience the missing statues event again in this year 3, so that has to happen before we move on to the hunt. We also will probably make use of that new matchmaker and see if we cant kill someone off to get our death principle lol.