A single, if somewhat large, room with living bones and living spirits. The elementalist wipe out the living spirits with a well-timed vengeance. We can then focus on the immediate goal of slaying 10 living bones (they keep popping up each round).
Once it’s done (not a big feat), the Hungry Soul manifests itself. Oddly, the Hungry Soul is no big deal as it’s just a slightly stronger elite living bones (with a strong shield that diminish the more living bones there is). So all in all, an anticlimactic end to the Fall of Man thread.
Victory!
All three of us can now retire our characters, that’s pretty awesome!
We’re supposed to investigate a dragon sighting in the copperneck mountains, but more frivolous adventurers the world as never seen. We’ve sidetracked at the first occasion, in this case after seeing some odd writings on the walls of a cave mentionning a “voice”. Or rather: The Voice.
We start the scenario with our first encounter with drakes (of the rending variety) and oozes. The soothsinger immobilize the whole lot before the elementalist softens them up. I then finish the two leftmost drakes with a devastating swing of my battleaxe. The way is clear (mostly).
In the next room floats 4 living spirits with their annoying shields and all.
But they’re promptly zapped into oblivion by the elementalist.
Living spirit: “I think it’s our cue!” Living spirits in unison: *anguished wail*
3 more drakes. We manoeuver so that they’re bunched together and:
Boom! They’re disintegrated, just like that.
Things are so smooth & easy, we’re swaggering our way deeper into the echo chamber. We will pay the price for our overconfidence though…
Only one door to open to win the scenario, but at least one of us must survive the round and it now seems far from certain…
The elementalist goes down too but the soothsinger survives to win the day. With 1 hp!
That was an incredibly close call!
Upon verification, surviving the final round isn’t mandatory but that would have felt like cheating…
The drakes are hard-hitting but not very durable, glass cannons essentially.
I think this scenario should be fairly easy, with a sound plan, on most play
The thing with dead people is that there’s so, soooo many of them. You just can’t take a wrong turn without stumbling upon a crypt. I mean, could they not just disappear or something? If at least they could stay dead dead but then, do they ever? They don’t! The stinking wretches just keep going on… Living Bones, Living Corpses, even Living Spirits. Living Spirit… What the hell does that even mean? Oh well, as long as I can hit them with my axe…
The soothsinger’s melody is so angst-filled that even the dead feel depressed…
The soothsinger’s immediate crippling chorus gives us time to prepare. I push the lone living corpse to get it in a perfect cluster for the elementalist’ next attack:
Soothsinger: “I’ve got first kill! I’ve got first kill!”
We mostly ignore the zombiesliving corpses that are oozing disgusting fluids everywhere since the elementalist’s ice-spiked them.
Three more living bones and three living spririts behind in the next room.
I jump in the middle of the living spirits to slash them with a devastating hack while the elementalist attacks the living bones with a (successful, yay!) chain-lightning.
Elementalist: “Could you help us finish those, please?” Brute: “I can’t hear ya! There’s too much moanin’ and singin’!”Brute: “For the Blood God!”
As I open the next door, a living spirit, a particularly dreadful one, blasts me with a necrotic ray that stuns me. That’s bad. Every damn monster in the room wants a piece of me. When I regain my senses, bleeding from many wounds, I lift my axe one last time and slay a living corpse before falling down on my knees. At least, the Blood God is pleased.
Elementalist: “Noisy, you’re still here?” Soothsinger: *Hit living bones with his lute* “Yes!”
With so many monsters left, the situation looks dire. But then the elementalist quickly kills 2 living spirits with a spell and then turns his attention to the stronger one:
And make it explode!
soothsinger, 5 rounds later: “I swear, this thing won’t f**cking die!”soothsinger: “Unless…”(bottom) “Get into this trap will you!”
Frantic lute-playing Victory Tune!
We did not reveal the other part of the crypt as there was no need
I burned through my cards waaaay too fast this time
the lvl 5 elementalist has been very, very efficient and saved the day
the soothsinger swamped the monsters in curses, we felt almost invicible, no kidding
I left my tribe… What? Yeah Okay Fine. I was kicked out of my tribe- longstorydontask- and now I give strength of my arms for payment. I am Mer-Cy-Na-Ry. Got that?
Okay so nobody wants lone Inox, too troublesomy they say, so I found lil’ fellows to be reaver-band with. One a Quaetryl, his name Noisy Lucky-Charm. The other, a Savvas, name Rainbow Poof.
No, not true names you dimwit. Names I give. Suitable names.
Now understand that is first mission for me. One day I be Hero-Chief. But before that, lots of work, lots of killing and many scars to appease the Blood God .
But now first mission is us three walking with Ghost-Lady to bone-collecting place. She wants to find a magic censer that someone stupidly left there because they’re dead.
We have to protect Ghost-Lady , her dead means a bad name for us, the lil’ fellows tell me. Best way to do it? Kill everything in the way!
Where’s the Elementalist? Huh. Could you wait a moment please?Brute: “Pssstt… I’ll rush forward and skewer the 2 gloomy-stabbies with one thrust!” Cultist: “We’re right there, we can hear you…”Soothsinger: dliiiing dliiiing dliiiing “two coins for me”Soothsinger: “and two moooore!” Brute: “wut? leave some for Borborygm you lil’ bugger!”
Rainbow Poof opens the third room and wants to roast his foes with lightning but all he gets is a feeble spark (3 curses for his Chain-Lightning!).We all laughed at that, everybody, except annoyed Rainbow Poof…
Soothsinger to Hail: “Don’t worry, I’m here!” *adjusts his lute*
As me and Rainbow Poof fight Dead-Fleshies, Ghost-Lady is a little behind and followed close by the non-living. Noisy Lucky-Charm says he will protect her: “I will change tempo suddenly and the monsters will be immobilized”. I mean, what the hell, but it worked…
I push a dead-fleshy into a trap as Rainbow Poof blasts the other with magic and the way is clear for the altar room.
Soothsinger: “there’s too many of them!” Brute: “the Blood God will be pleased”
My battle-axe cuts great chunks of dead flesh and Rainbow Poof joins the fun as fire spews forth from his fingers toward the baddies.
Hail finally gets to the altar and takes Stonecrusher’s censer
Frantic lute-playing Victory Tune!
this escort mission was a lot of fun, nice change of pace
the soothsinger stacked our decks with bless cards and cursed the monster’s: incredibly useful
I did A LOT of damage with those bless and could kill elite living-corpses easily
his main song, his level 4 card, gives disadvantage to all attacks from the monsters, that’s amazingly strong
at one point we considered doing more vs the monsters behind but we didn’t (except the soothsinger a little) and it proved unnecessary
I have to be exhausted for my new Life Goal, I did it but we had to block Hail for 2 rounds (to get the treasure too)
the soothsinger looted 9 coins the greedy bastard :p
My ongoing D&D campaign is set in the jungles of Chult. I have the Tomb of Annihilation adventure book and while I don’t use its main plot *shudders*, I love the setting. I mean, I could very well have done the same thing with the old Isle of Dread module, but I didn’t know of its existence when I bought ToA. Anyway, I feel like ToA grafted a sandbox to something that wasn’t exactly meant for it. The PCs must find a specific location (the tomb duh) and have no real incentives to explore the fantastic locations on their way (not that there’s much of it tbh). More so, the players have this bigass map with the blanks… well unless you have a really dedicated cartographer player, it doesn’t see much use in my experience. Which is a shame.
In retrospect, what I would have liked is stickers. I’ve discovered the fun of it in my recent experience with legacy-type boardgames (gloomhaven, betrayal legacy).
As the Cragheart and I are discussing our upcoming retirement, it came to our attention that we will be remembered mostly as thieves and murderers. In a last-ditch effort to help our successors disentangle the mess we’ve created, we thought it would be a good idea to finally get some advice. Or rather, a sage in town will give us information if we go retrieve some kind of magic orb for her. So here we are, at the frozen hollow…
I remembered the hounds (from the diamond mine) to be faster that I could ever be and planned my actions accordingly but, maybe those are a little stiff from the cold or something, they weren’t fast at all.
Spellweaver: “Get up you lazy mutts, my plan depends on it!”
We had to get to them, how inconvenient. Well a Chromatic Explosion ought to wake them up a little! The Elementalist gleefully syphon away elements to craft his own powerful magic and he too blast away.
The Cragheart bullies the hounds a little while I try my newly acquired Living Torch on those hard-to-hit living spirits. My attack is blessed by the gods and one wraith disappears permanently and the other is damaged.
Cragheart: “RaaAaah, you icicles will serve the purpose of my battle goal nicely!”
Our tanky Cragheart left us with two hounds as he gets further in the lair. One hound, that just wouldn’t die (damn curses), savaged the hell out of me before the Elementalist finally killed the vicious beast.
A Song of Ice and Fire and Boulders
Meanwhile, the Cragheart has astutely created a blocus with boulders, but he took a few big hits nonetheless. I hurry myself to patch him up and also summon my Burning Avatar to melt those dangerous frost demons.
Once again Craggy is on the move and he opens the final area, revealing 2 hounds, 1 Elite frost demon and 4 living spirits.
He manages to slay 3 living spirits, but the hounds attack him and are relentless.
Cragheart: “Must… Lay… Down…”
Well it’s up to the squishy duo to finish the damn thing, isn’t it? The 3 remaining monsters offers me a straight line for my Impaling Eruption, killing the hound and softening up the frost demon, and yet more with a Flame Strike.
The living spirit is impervious to my attacks but the Elementalist jumps in and Chain-Lightn…
-No, no, wait, says he, I can’t do that… I need time to loot the treasure!
Halfassed Chain Lightning!
With only one monster left, it’s now officially time for treasure-hunting! It takes a while, as the Elementalist has to step into a stun-trap to get it while being pursued (albeit slowly) by the frost demon. As for me, I’m smoking a cigarette in the back, of course.
Victory!
We played this scenario at hard difficulty (by mistake) and we managed to win. Now, we’ll see how it goes with 2 new characters next session…
Hounds and Frosties have retaliate, better to have good ranged attacks (or a lot of hp)
Living spirits with 3 or 4 shield (but low hp) can be hard to deal with. I used my piercing bow with the first 2. Fortunately, the Cragheart was here for the 4 in last room.
Speaking of which, the Cragheart was an all-around efficient and versatile character, in Math’s hands at least. We’ll miss him.
We’ve recently avenged our defeat at the hand of the city’s guards military’s lackeys. Triumphant, we now aim at correcting another setback, less our reputation stays tarnished forever…
Taking out the demons… Huh, can’t remember for the life of me what we did exactly in the first room. I know we took our time, like 4 rounds, but without spending “loss” cards and we rested before opening next room’s door, knowing what we’d find behind.
Die! You moderately inconvenient demons!Spellweaver (for the seventh time): “Now, remember what we said. We jump over them.” Elementalist: “Not even a lil’ chain-lightning?” SW: “No! No attacks! Just jump dammit!”
I used my ride the wind to go all the way up to the 3 ancient artillery. They happily fire in my face but, no worries, my frost armor deflects the cannon balls! The Cragheart has a moment of self-doubt as for once the Mindthief isn’t there to convince him that he too can move fast…
Stone Golem: “Give me 4 more rounds and I’ll get you!”
Time to boast!
Spellweaver: “It worked! I told you it would work, didn’t I!
Cragheart: “Yeah, yeah, shut up already.”
Ahhh we’ll miss the Cragheart’s boulders when he’ll retire…Actually, we should be called “colorless”, not him!
Half-remembered Victory!
Did I mention that jumping over the stone golems was my idea? :p
I used the bottom of my 5th lvl chromatic explosion to help the Elementalist, but I was sad that I did not play the top (infuse all elements at once)
The Elementalist got exhausted first again, he needs to buy energy drinks!
I used the bottom of Frost Armor for the first time and I liked the feeling of not worrying if I’d get attacked.
By now we have many adventuring threads open to us but the Mindthief have his own idea what we should do next. Frowning, he whispers: “abandonned sewers“.
Those aren’t big fat turds with fangs (sorry Math!), no! They’re Giant Vipers…
There’s a whole lot of them and oozes in the back.
The vipers aren’t very threatening, they don’t do a lot of damage, but they poison as a basic feature. The oozes, surprisingly, are range attackers, very slow, and they sometimes summon more of their kind (they seem to have a few of those cards in their deck).
Water and the Cragheart’s boulders stop the spreading of the oozesWith an Elementalist, a Cragheart and a Spellweaver, numerous, low hp monsters, are easy to deal with…
I open the second door and flings fire orbs at yet more giant vipers, killing the nearest and damaging 2 others. The Mindthief then takes on him to protect me.
Vipers, oozes and vermlings are all friendly roommates
The Cragheart moves fast (for a plodding rock-person) and throws a devastating boulder attackunstable upheaval, killing 2 vipers and an ooze and damaging some more.
Cragheart: “Cleaning time!”tis’ a boulder attack!The Mindthief doesn’t care for his own safety when he has the opportunity to kill his own kind
The Mindthief badly misjudge the ability of his hated foes to deliver damage and pays in blood. I try to help the Mindthief without stealing his kills, with a low damage forked beam, but I picked 2 good attack cards and ended up killing 2 vermlings instead… (sorry Dubs!)
The Cragheart did a LOT in the second room but he’s now near exhaustion.
The Elementalist is bolder than we thought, or… Elementalist: “cloak of invisibility!”
The third and final room features a cistern in the middle, more vermlings and a strategically-placed Wall of Oozes. The Elementalist begs for elements. When he does it, this can only means….
Elementalist: “SUPER-CHARGED CHAIN-LIGHTNING!”
He zaps the hell out of the oozes, inflicting a whopping 19 damage (total) to 4 targets!
Blocking the summons again.
I do an Icy Blast to further soften the oozes, They then try to split but only one have the space. The Mindthief and Cragheart are out but there’s not much left to do at this point, so no worries.
Except for the battle goals…. (Damn, this feature of the game can be annoying at times)
I need to be at 2 hp or less at the end of scenario to succeed. As for the Elementalist, he needs to kill 5 enemies (which I don’t know at this point). I want to be hit by the last remaining ooze. He wants to kill it so he has his last kill. Confusion ensued, bickering and… we both failed our battle goals…
Oh well…
Victory nonetheless!
this was an easy one, for a team like ours at least
the ooze’s deck was very well-timed for us all along
the Mindthief killed 4 vermlings (4/15) for his Life Goal
blocking the summoning oozes was super efficient
we left a ton of coins on the map
the treasure is a nice addition for the Elementalist
First room, we all attack the Elite Archer and ignore the guards.
The Mindthief’s stench is so FOUL that he’s the least likely to be attacked
The Mindthief’s psychic powers convince the Cragheart that he’s not, despite contrary evidence, a plodding rock-person, and he moves all the way to the next room. That obviously takes the garrison by surprise – its much more lightly-defended than in our previous attempt.
Mindthief: “Fly Craggy, fly!”Guard: “What was that? Must’ve been the wind…”
I kill one normal archer with a well-placed (2x) manabolt. The Elementalist kills an Elite with a ranged attack of his.
One round later and we’re all re-grouped at the fountain’s room (or is that the eponymous square?). I ride the wind and freeze nova 2 archers. Next is our only hassle of the scenario as the archers pick a 2 targets deck card, severely wounding both me and the Mindthief with their ranged attacks.
Meanwhile the guards choose the safety of numbers against the remaining Living Bones.Notice the nice wall of stone. Creation of the Cragheart to further slow down our foes.Commander: “WTF! You again!? Guards, to me!”Guards: “Comin’ Boss” *move -1*That’s what we call CORNERED!DEATH by RATS! Gruesome…
Blissful Victory!
Sweet Revenge!
As much as we were far removed from success in our previous attempt, now it was truly a walk in the park (and not because of medium difficulty)
We used and abused a perfectly legal (but strange) game mechanic whereas enemies don’t appear if there is no more available minis
I was pretty useless with my SW apart from giving elements to the Elementalist from time to time
The Cragheart led the charge and implemented efficiently our plan
The Mindthief did really good damage against the Boss
After our failure to kill the commander of the guards, we needed to hide from justice some fresh air. We followed hints, provided by a strange coin that we’d found earlier, that led to the Temple of the Eclipse.
The Temple of the Eclipse’s main gimmick is its link to both light and dark. And it has a Boss: the Colorless, who also follows this thematic. All other elements are weaker than usual and that is, of course, a major pain in the ass for our Elementalist…
In the temple’s parlour, we are greeted by two pairs of Night and Sun Demons. The Cragheart charges head on and, in his recklessness, he gets many grievous wounds. I patch him up and he’s back in combat shape but the demons are very dangerous and are hard to outmaneuver. It’s not easy but we defeat them and get a special scenario item, something we can use against the Colorless.
Both Elementalist and Spellweaver: “Cloak of Invisibility! Phew…”
We open the door and see 3 hulking Stone Golems blocking our way (no pic, wut?!). They have Shield 2, that’s a real bother. Me and the Cragheart try to set up a shield/retaliate combo. That would have been very nice and efficient, if only the stone golems had friggin’ attacked! Total waste of a turn… At least, the Elementalist could demonstrate impressive damage-dealing with his level 3 Chain Lightning.
Cragheart: Acid puddles? Columns? PUSH!
Jumping over the Stone Golems and simply ignore them would have been a viable plan, as they’re turtle-slow, but we feared the long-ranged Ancient Artillery‘s firepower in the back. So we finished the golems and also got a second scenario item nearby. Once we got close though, the artillery were easily dispatched. Unfortunately, by then it’s obvious that we don’t have very long before we’re all exhausted and we still have the Boss to slay…
Cragheart: “Ah Ha! Try to summon now!”
The Cragheart has a very good plan, stop the Colorless from summoning by blocking all adjacent squares!
Wait a minute, how do we get to the altar now?
But time isn’t on our side and the Colorless makes it worse, he alternates between getting invisible and healing himself. We know that dumping the 2 special items on the altar will deal him good damage but it’s hard to do without getting eviscerated by the demons.
My mystic ally, behind, doing fuck all.Spellweaver: “Must…Lay…Down”
The Boss had 10 hp left but we failed to kill him. The Cragheart managed to take the treasure and got a very nice healing ring.
The elementalist was a lot more efficient this time (not his fault if the scenario played against his character) as he got the grasp of how is new character works
His chain-ligthning was suitably impressive against the stone golems
I regret not having picked Cold Fire at level 3
My mystic ally was totally useless both time I summoned it
We tried a retaliate combo, me and the cragheart, against the stone golems, and that totally backfired in our face when those flipped a retaliate card of their own
That’s probably the last time I bring Hardened Spikes to battle despite the prior amazing success we had with it (the one time)
Our tendency to get in harm’s way (the cragheart in particular) is something that we addressed after this scenario
From now on, we’ll play at default difficulty until we have better synergy
Streets & Spores 