People of the Dream Keeper – Part 3: “Shopping for Samtsirch presents” (Patreon)

This covers Lantern Years 4 to 8.

Spoilers for:

• Crimson Crocodile Level 2
• Crimson Crockery
• Crimson Crocodile Indomitable Resources
• Smog Singers Level 2
• Collective Cognition
• Outskirts
• Seed Patterns
• Forum
• Philosophies/Knowledge

With the poor old level 1 butcher quickly shuffled off this mortal coil thanks to the power of the Singing Armor, it was time to start preparing for the next nemesis monster on the timeline Atnas. Unlike the Butcher, we were not prepared with any foreknowledge about how Atnas would operate, its gimmicks and threats (a genuine concern because on the whole the King's Man/Slenderman node Nemesis monsters are some of the toughest foes in the game) . So the goal here was to over-prepare as much as possible while also advancing towards more Collective Cognition unlocks, this means that it was the moment where we left the Level One Node 1 & 2 monsters in our rear view and turned towards the Level 2 ones.

However, the first thingI have to note is that before the Butcher the settlement encountered the return of our banished survivor as a Bone Witch (this was operated in the correct order, I just accidentally omitted it from the previous report); without a Guidepost innovation it didn't seem worth sending multiple survivors to endeavor there. Instead just our most insane and incredibly imaginatively named returning survivor performed the endeavor, a result of a 6 had the Witch tell us all about the embrace of the awaiting darkness and ask for some bones, which we were not giving her (as a quick note here, with the change to Pictographs the 8-10 result for the Bone Witch when you don't have a guide post seems a bit weak, because I haven't seen a way to get the “Run Away” story event). While I'm musing on this, I think it would have been really thematically rich to have survivors who gain the Terrified status card be able to “Run Away”. Food for thought, maybe Run Away does turn up somewhere. Either way, we're not here to play amateur designer.

Level 2 Monsters tend to be where the mechanics that the monsters are designed around become solidified and surprises are dropped at the feet of the survivors (Sunstalker is a great example of this). However, with several dependable knowledges like Tenacity, Paint and Inner Lantern alongside a complete set of Crimson Crocodile & Singer Armor; I felt that we were as prepared as we could be without going out and hunting more L1 Smog Singers to grind out that second set of Singer Armo. However, not having Song of the Brave to protect against the Path of the Insane when facing such an insanity focused monster like the Crimson Crocodile was a bit of a concern. One could only hope that the slightly lower than normal toughness of the monster in combination with survival actions, the blood pool insanity gain and what was looking like a solid platter of gear would be enough to weather the hunt. However, if we ran into the Bone Eaters I would probably consider stepping down a level in difficulty for that particular hunt unless it went very well.

The general goals here would be getting the L2 resource specific Crimson Crocodile gear card, completing the Rawhide set, crafting the Pipa for use during nemesis showdowns, Round Leather Shield(s) and either getting a second set of Singer Armor or if we fall short of that it'll be a set of Leather Armor because it's a bit more straightforward to craft due to generic crafting costs.

In respect to the innovation situation, the settlement is now looking for Drums in order to push towards Song of the Brave + Saga and Hovel for Family & Clan of Death. Though picking up a Lantern Oven for Heat + Cooking would also be fine. On the Scout Front, with the Stone Faced Cloak crafted the goals were Grimjaw, the Lantern and the Vermin Belly Boots (if we get a vermin). The last piece of the current goals would be grinding seed patterns as hard as possible to try and get things which could be potentially crafted instead of the early unlocks we got which required either Principles which were not selected or King based resources. It's a bit odd how that happened, I've checked the book several times and it does seem to be the case that I correctly operated the rules; just got unlucky with the card draws.

Collective Cognition hit the 6th Milestone; which gave us a knowledge that I've still not managed to make much use of, so I can't comment on it. I'm trying, but I haven't seen it come out of the Knowledge deck since the unlock (I've got the bleed build ready, it's just going to take time to see it, gain it and then level it up).

The hunt phase for the Crimson Crocodile did result in a two survivors losing all their insanity during Overwhelming Darkness, but fortunately one survivor kept it all and gained a little Hide Crab friend and one of the survivors who was completely cleaned out of Insanity was the Scout, who intended to run off into the corner and turn into terrain anyway. While I immediately felt a lot of affection for that little crab, because its presence meant one of the two front line survivors wasn't terrified, the truth was if we completed the showdown its ultimate fate was to become a pair of boots. Sorry buddy, I'd love to keep you in the settlement as a pet, but vermin have been scarce indeed.

The level 2 Crimson Crocodile turned out to be manageable as its main upgraded mechanic  outside of cards/wounds and stat increases was turning its Vasodilated into Super-Dense hit locations. That would impact the Bloodglass Cleaver, but as the other weapons being used were the Bloodglass Saw (Luck based), Hamfluter and Crimson Pearls (Also Luck Based) there was less of a problem until the Cleaver inevitably collided with a Super-Dense location (I was using the Cleaver against Coagulated hit locations where possible as given they had the Coagulated tag I figured that they wouldn't be Vasodilated). Overall Singer Armor negated the extra speed that the L2 had and the deep survival pools that Survivalist survivors have also helped a great deal.

Vasodilated: A type of hit location. Against stronger Crimson Crocodiles, these locations may become problematic.

However, this first Middle Crunk Gruff also had another sneaky little trick up her scale skinned sleeve in that she got a Legendary card mixed in, and during the end stages of the fight it made its presence known. This one was Blood King and it caused a real moment of panic as we realised that weapons used against it were going to gradually be struggling to wound it. The sheer horror of this situation was not lost on me, but there was a bright light at
the end of that tunnel because we had brought multiple different weapons to this fight, and a quick check revealed that we had more weapons than Crunk's remaining wounds. So the panic quickly switched over to a grim resolve and determination to win the showdown. Two turns later and Crunk was no more, spilling out her rewards across the table including the... Secret Stone. Which gave us the Dome Buster for the low low price of that stone and 4 bones. This was an easy, immediate craft, and it represented the moment where Termina's hunting power level took a huge spike upwards. In addition to that we also got the Crimson Bow and that meant going ahead we could run the Cleaver, Crimson Bow, Bloodglass Saw and Dome Buster along with a Bone Sword on the Scout (Impermanism away!)

Other gear crafted included the Blood Compass Lantern for the affinity (Bow wants it) along with a form of Hit Location “scouting” and a single Round Leather Shield (RLS). It is a little inefficient to activate Ammonia for just 2 leather total, but the RLS is the best single gear card in the leather crafter and is completely worth it. The second leather is being held for a second shield. I also got those Vermin Boots, but still lacked the Broken Lantern needed for the Scout's Lantern.

On the Philosophy front the deck was proving to be shy and lacking in variety; it kept throwing out the same set of philosophies over and over; returning axe survivor gained Survivalism, again. Our Scout Jigsaw having gained Impermanism, was one of the few survivors without either Dreamism or Survivalism. To say it was a little frustrating would be an understatement; however killing Crunk got us to a huge Collective Cognition unlock at 8; this gave us the Butchery innovation; archived those awful starting Knowledges and delivered the ability to gain weapon proficiencies. Hooray, time to start worrying about Murder!

A little later than I would have liked, but at last we could start making progress towards F&T mastery and maybe Hunger could work on Shield as he has a ridiculous 5 strength. In addition to that Treasure took up the mantle of F&T, Syr Vival aimed for Bow and Prismatic lined up for Club (could have also picked Grand here, but I wanted to try Club specialisation with the Dome Buster). Due to already gained XP I wasn't confident in some of these survivors completing their journeys, but heck that's what Family, Butchery and Nightmare Training are all for right? If only I had all of those...

The timeline gave us the Stained event and due to our collective cognition level a survivor gained +1 evasion while the pop culture reference survivor named Cring Kimson gained +3 Lumi and the Serial Code Knowledge. A mystery to be unfolded later on one presumes. If its exciting I'll likely remember to write about it when it happens. Cring's going to sit in the settlement until the trigger is earned because all he's done to date was survive a single showdown.

Next up on the chopping list, for personal variety, and to help calm my heart rate it was time for the L2 Smog Singers. Again Overwhelming Darkness was an absolute pain in the backside; but given the nature of the Smog Singers I felt a bit more confident. This showdown fight showcased a little more of what the Smog Singers are about as they got a dramatically increased wound total due to the “O” level cards being added into the AI deck. However; it turns out that Dome Buster lives up to its name, our Prismatic just crushed the heck out of the Smog Singers and Treasure even removed one of the Smog Singers from the board by deflating it on the first turn thanks to her Luck based build lining up with a critical wound. I'd like to say that this was an interesting fight, but to be honest it just wasn't due to it being so short. Dome Buster +1 Speed +Surge is a lot of damage and the Smog Singers were not up to the challenge. They have an interesting concept, but rather than taking after Spidicules, they seem to land more in the Screaming Antelope power level. What is it with Node 2 monsters being softer than many Node 1s (except for you Spidicules, I'll always respect your showdown prowess)?

Similar things happened with the remaining L2 Crimson Crocodile and second L2 Smog Singer; and because these showdowns were back to back my notes sort of fall apart. I can however note that the second Crunk had the legendary AI card Exsanguinate early in the showdown and we got access to Aerial Transfusion on one survivor. Outside of the showdown, there was a lot of pushing hard on scoring innovations. However, the situation remained zero hits on Hovel or Drums again; which was making me a bit nervous due to lacking any way to “back up” Weapon Proficiency with offspring; we were also failing to find that last broken lantern. Every year drawing the Settlement Event resulted in a lot of nail biting because there was zero protection against Murder if it happened. We did however unlock Sated Enlightenment – which put some level 2 Philosophies in the deck, they didn't turn up.  The Atnas timeline event resulted in the Self-Invited Guest turning up in 1d10 years; which gave us a 1, so next year. The Perfect Hide became a Scavenger Kit and when the Self-Invited Guest turned up we got the Chaos Elf Hat that was slammed into storage because at this point we had enough head gear and it didn't seem interesting enough.

As the settlement set up ready for Atnas, we had to cut our losses as we didn't get the resources needed for our second Singer set from the L2 Singers. It was no time for Sunk Cost Falacy, before Atnas so the decision was made to just settle for Leather (and get another Singer Set post Atnas). This meant that we were going into this fight with a Sharp Bone Sword (Impermanism - Scout), Dome Crusher, Bloodglass Cleaver, Fist & Tooth/Bloodglass Saw and the Crimson Bow. Armor sets were Singing, Leather, Crimson Crocodile , Rawhide and Clothed & Satiated (Stone Face Cloak, Vermin Boots, Bloody Cloth on Scout). We also decided to take out the good team for this showdown, wish them luck.

Thoughts

While the systems remain a bit overwhelming to navigate still, it's getting a bit easier to get through them as I expected it would. It's also a lot easier when one has more than a single head keeping track of the Knowledge triggers (as per the rules, if you miss the triggers and they're positive, suck it up). There is also now a great reference sheet set on BGG (https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/265622/knowledge-and-philosophies-reference) which helps a lot. 

As you read in my initial thoughts review; the Crimson Crocodile has certainly climbed up the ranks and is now at the rank of “all time great”, placing itself ahead of the Gorm for Node 1 rankings because it doesn't have the same roughness that the Generation 1 monsters have. I do hope that Campaigns of Death addresses the shortcomings/issues that crop up in that content with replacement cards for some of the less desirable/weaker and broken elements.

Singer Armor remains the single largest argument for hunting the Smog Singers and it is exactly where a Node 2 armor set should be (Screaming Armor? Silk Armor? Take note). However the other options in the crafting location seem to either fall off quickly, have negatives that overwhelm their strengths or just seem underpowered. It is clear that the Chorusseum weapons revolve around the Harpy Harp, with only the excellent Spear of Life and the very situational Spinning Sword avoiding that. The Harp itself is quite an interesting tool as Overwhemling Darkness immunity does a lot of work; the real question however is how comfortable one is with noisy gear. I tried it again in this campaign with the Hamfluter, but now I have the Domebuster I'm running back to a quiet life again. If I return probably depends on what Indomitable weapons come from the Smog Singers.

If I'm not going into a huge amount in respect to the Knowledges yet its because many of them are still “Observations gain progress but no other ability” and my constant drawing of Survivalism is not helping build variety. It's powerful for sure and easy to remember the survival tokens existing, but I can't help but wish for a chance to more deeply engage with this improved "Fighting Art" system.

Next time it's going to be Atnas, the Phoenix and Level 3 Crunk/Singers, The Hand and then after that comes the lonely trek through the Teenage Wasteland that Lantern Years 13 to 19 always seem to work out as due to no LY~15 new quarries. Good luck Termina!

(Note: I've gotten more minis painted now so expect to see more images when we reach the post L1 Atnas stage of this write up, and yes. I am indeed playing through this very slowly because I'm taking time to consider and digest each step as I'm going along)

(Note 2: I made the mistake of waiting a few days before writing this one up, so if it is a little scattered, sorry about that. I've stepped up my note taking and I'm writing sections down the same day that they happen. Unfortunately, that will only be starting from LY12).

(Note 3: We'll be looking at the Smog Singers and their gear over the next two weeks before returning to this story.)

(Note4: Patreon has once again changed their layout and editing system at the back end, please forgive any mistakes or eaten sentences!)