Junction: LY 12: Twilight Sword

Our four newest survivors took to the hunt at the beginning of Lantern Year 11, tracking a White Lion. Three of the four warriors lived to return home, the fourth was an unfortunate victim to the monster's playful batting; the monster literally blowing up her head in a visceral explosion!

One beautiful page found in the Kingdom Death: Monster rulebook. The amount of page turning required for the game leaves me feeling dirty after every play session. This book should be a centerpiece on any coffee table, rather than manhandled every game session.

LY 12 began with the choice of a new principle for the settlers. I chose barbarism over romanticism, as, it provides the entire population now (and moving forward) +1 strength. After that was resolved, Junction was visited by the hooded knight. Aeris was randomly chosen as one of three hunters that had exactly 1 hunting experience each. She bravely met the knight and, consulting the 'mysterious agenda' table pictured above, rolled a lantern 10. Aeris earned the Twilight Sword and the ability to acquire weapon proficiency in the cursed weapon (one level prior to weapon proficiency availability). The Knight will return to test my survivor in a few years should she survive...

The survivors chose to hunt a level 1 white lion in the hopes of a scoring a relatively predictable battle. With some finesse and a lot of luck, my goal was to attempt to gain Aeris a proficiency level with the Twilight Sword. Of course, a few things would have to fall into place in order to be successful; see, the sword requires the user to be insane in order to wield it (an insanity level of +3; Aeris only had 2 point of insanity at the onset of this hunt), and suffers an accuracy of '9 - specialization level', or, a 9 to hit in her case.

This thing is beast...and heavy!

Bold's gear grid: Ranged and support duty.

Tiara's gear grid: Bow and support duty.

Aeris' gear grid: With the neck piece her strength is boost to +4. Her extra speed (attack) can't modify the Twilight Sword, but, it can augment her Katars'.

Jondlr's gear grid: Melee duty with strength buff.

Looking at each gear grid you can see that I willy-nilly'd gear crafting in the first few years. To do it all over again, I'd give everyone a full set of armor first, then, move onto lion and leather. Oh well- lessons for the next campaign.

Back to the story: The four survivors pushed out from Junction and inched their way across the hunt board. The random instances I drew were pretty forgettable- two White Lion hunt cards, and a random roll that resulted in the hunting party being entrusted with a portculis key.

With the hunt over, the White Lion showdown could begin. I set up the game board with tall grass and two random terrain types:

 My first strike of luck was drawing a survivor's corpse as one random terrain piece. Aeris had only two points of insanity- she needed three in order to swing the Twilight Sword. Getting her to scavenge the survivor's corpse would be my first order of business. I positioned my archers at cardinal points from the Lion, both taking position in tall grass for the evasion bonus. Jondlr and Aeris began closer to the beast to potentially draw and keep the lion as close to board center as possible.

After the Lion's turn, Aeris moved to search the survivor's corpse, rolling a '5' to earn insanity and a random resource- sweet!

Jondlr positioned himself behind the lion for the blind spot bonus and attacked the Lion's heel. Jondlr rolled a lantern 10 and knocked the beast down.

When my survivor critically wounded the monster, I knew I had a very good chance to earn Aeris her first TS proficiency.

Unfortunately, Aeris was unable to capitalize on the lion in this turn because a Twilight Sword requires movement and action activation in order to swing...heavy, dude.

Imagine my surprise when, on the lion's turn I drew 'sniff'.
The lion didn't move!
This allowed Aeris a turn to move into position behind the beast. She struck with her katars, wrecking the White Lion and earning a lion resource as a result. The monster took it's turn and rolled a one due to it's persistent injury 'ruptured tendon'. Down fell the lion, allowing Aeris to strike on a +3! She got one shot and rolled a '4'. Aeris caused a wound with the Twilight Sword and once the lion was dispatched would earn one weapons specialization. The lion was culled turn four allowing the survivors to return home victorious!
Talk about an exciting showdown session! All of my survivors lived, and, Aeris got a notch on her twilight sword!