Let's Sperg Darkest Dungeon Let's Sperg: Part 2 - A Quest of Autism and Lovecraftian Horror

[LD 3187]

Could you show me my stats/quirks/perks w/e they are called?

 

[Jaimas]

Could you show me my stats/quirks/perks w/e they are called?

Sure.

She just locked in Quick Reflexes recently. Lygophobia isn't much of a drawback so I'm not in a hurry to cure it.

Quick Reflexes gives +2 Speed.

Cove Scrounger gives more item drops in cove.

Photomania gives her 20% less stress when light is high.

Resilient heals 10% Stress.

Ruins Adventurer makes her take 20% less stress damage in the Ruins.

Lygophobia boosts stress damage by 20% when light is low.

The trinket she has boosts accuracy by 10 and dodge rate by 12, but also boosts stress damage taken by 10%.

 

[Jaimas]

A team of @Cynical, @c-no, @Solzhenitsyn, and @Ravelord descend into Veteran Weald. This area is a fucking nightmare on Veteran and up, and you're about to see why. Their mission: Find a few of the corpses being used to nourish the blight, and apply a tincture developed by @Shuu Iwamine in order to prevent the spread further.

Giants are one of the most devastating enemies in the game, and only show up on Veteran and higher. They have tons of HP (so they'll always get in a hit or two), have blight and disruption attacks, and Treebranch Smackdown, their melee attack, is capable of causing horrific amounts of damage in one go. A critical hit from that attack is capable of bringing a more-or-less intact hero to Death's Door in one go, and it inflicts Stun and knockback too for good measure. The lesser hag you see in the middle is another fucking asshole of an enemy that only appears on Veteran and up; she causes large stress damage, debuffs, and inflicts blight, all while causing your light level to plummet.

Not long after, the group runs into the first of the infected corpses and uses the potion to kill the fungus. Shuu's poison cocktail is terrifyingly effective as a fungicide, and it quickly becomes clear that under no circumstances should you ever piss off a plague doctor.

That night at the camp, the group patches their wounds and Solzhenitsyn tells of his attempts to track down lawbreakers when this stretch of woods was less of a fucking nightmare. Cynical shares some potent medicines with the others, and explains that she got it when conducting business in the far east. The medicines provide resistance to blight and disease, which is handy here. Solz also helps patch C-No's bruises, and the group sings a warming campfire song before bed.

Veteran Weald missions, especially Medium length and up, are sprawling, assholish affairs, not made easier by the fact that you're loaded down with supplies. Trying to salvage journal pages doesn't help either. Emboldened and healed, the team proceeds further into this glade of death.

Another Ghoul shows up. These fucking assholes are everywhere. Coordinated attacks from the entire team put this asshole down for the count, and our heroes press on.

We soon find one of the border estates. It's terrifying what the blight has done to this region. Giving too much thought to what could have happened here chills the blood.

This asshole shows up again to spoil our fun, but unlike most of the other minibosses who get way harder as you go, this shithead gets way easier, since you can do damage quicker and even his improved HP doesn't help.

Within moments, Solz marks him for death after Ravelord stuns his ass.

Solz' high critical rate then tacitly shows why a Houndmaster is not to be fucked with.

The enemy drops a Puzzling Trapezohedron soonafter, which is going right into the war chest. Right now financing weapon and armor upgrades, as well as character upgrades, is paramount; when a team hits level 5 we run the risk of attracting a very dangerous enemy who we have to fight. Going in undergunned leads to an early grave.

Our favorite idiots show up again, having learned absolutely nothing, and the group immediately gets to work pounding them into the ground. Seriously you three, fuck off, already.

Back in town, we get a new unit in the form of a secondary plague doctor, @alex_theman, and we get word that the group's efforts have made the Weald that much safer for a time. A good chance to level up but also a dangerous one since we need to slow down our leveling at the moment.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Just letting you know that because of this LP, I have re-installed Darkest Dungeon and have started playing it again.

Bastard, I wasn't planning on installing any games on this laptop.

 

[Jaimas]

As of this moment, everyone is level four except for @Burned Man, @Randall Fragg, @alex_theman, and @Techpriest. Normally it would be very easy to level them all up but due to various issues, Randall and Burned Man will not party together. I'm currently working on trying to hammer out a solution to this while keeping my team's XP from growing too high. There isn't anything especially new to report, so courage.

What is notable is that the entire team that was sent out last mission wound up suffering greatly, and have diseases and worse to get over. Boldy blames the entire barrel of Swine alcohol she drank. KidKitty warned against it, but was not listened to.

More as it develops.

 

[alex_theman]

Thanks @Jaimas!

 

[Jaimas]

This is a match for the understudies. Today we lucked out, and a new arrival squeaked in at the perfect time. After literal days of terrible arbalests with even worse perks (and not a single fucking new class when there's like three I haven't used), we lucked out and noble @Varg Did Nothing Wrong joined the party.

A bit wet behind the ears, this Man-At-Arms proceeded to team up with @Randall Fragg, @Techpriest, and @alex_theman in an effort to take out a brand new threat, which, I'm hoping by coincidence, looks almost too much like Mark Boyd for my liking:

My lofty position wasn't always accompanied by the fear of office, and there was a time when I could walk the streets or raise a glass in the tavern without concern for molestation. Faithful as the tide, one precocious village waif made it her hobby to shadow my every errand. It was charming then, troublesome later.

Armed up, @Shuu Iwamine and @c-no's apprentices made a decent match for Randall and Varg, and the team advanced into the fetid depths with dire intent. This is a terrible thing wrought by the Ancestor, and while we do not yet know the full details, it appeared he created a filthy fish-tranny. This can not stand.

Whereas Shuu is an offensive powerhouse, Alex focuses primarily on support, nothing quite so usable as Invigorating Vapors. This powerful concoction allows Alex to overclock one ally's offense to a hilarious degree, though it only lasts a short time. On a character like Techpriest, it can cause his Daemon's Pull to do some real damage. On a character like Randall or Varg, this mega-strength allows them to punch most dudes into hamburger and tear lesser enemies limb from limb. Good stuff.

Keep an eye on those bloated zombies in the background, by the way. If you ever encounter them, take them down or stun them immediately. After two rounds, they'll self-destruct using the gasses in their body, doing tremendous damage to one character, as well as huge stress. You do not want this - at low level they can push a fragile character to Death's Door in a single go.

Our young heroes fight some real tough battles here. Randall winds up infected with Creeping Cough, crippling his offensive potential, but the team refuses to back off, fighting their way through illness and pain. Varg barks orders, Randall beats things to death with a fucking chain, and Alex hurls flashbangs as Techpriest debuffs enemies and saps their attack power.

Even our young heroes meet up with the trio of morons we have met literally every mission now. Though Techpriest is ostensibly a supporter, Weakening Hex is actually quite capable of causing damage, and often a timely use finishes off a weakened (but still alive) enemy.

Varg manages to shed Dark Temptation via psychedelic healing coral. We seriously need to package this shit and sell it because holy crap the number of psychiatric disorders we could heal in the greater world with this.

During their travels, Techpriest talks about his mentor, and describes how C-No became an Occultist. As it turns out, C-No has been beyond the veil. He has seen places that hide secrets - hidden, forsaken, and forbidden to the outside world, but all simply awaiting one who dares enough. C-No recovered the channeling device he uses - the skull of his old master - through this bleak spirit-journey, and C-No has seen things that we mortal minds were never meant to know. Techpriest has only touched upon the outer circles, and in time, he will walk them as well.

Our heroes soon meet the lair of the sea-witch herself. Chugging all their holy water, the team prepares for a terrifying enemy.

Looking nothing so much as a merfolk Mark Boyd, this terrifying entity was once human, or so rumors dictate. Simultaneously queen and slave to the fish-men, she is, like many problems caused by the Ancestor, another mistake we have to fucking clean up. I, for one, refuse to believe this and am convinced that that thing is male. Moreover, that the Ancestor was a tranny chaser. It just would make that much sense.

The Siren is an odd battle. If you prepared by using Holy Water, she is actually remarkably easy, especially if you keep pressure on. If you didn't, she is shockingly difficult and bringing characters like the Man-at-Arms or Houndmaster can fuck you over in the worst possible way. Thankfully this time we brought plenty, so many of her attacks will fail. She gets 2 attacks a turn, and her most well-known is pressure crash, a party-wide stress booster. She also summons backup, and uses a party-wide bleed attack.

Varg wins at screaming, and boosts the evade rate of his teammates in the process.

Fed up with this fish's shit, Randall transforms and starts going to work. His demonic form has enormous attack power, even with the illness - especially after Alex pumps him full of combat drugs. He builds stres transforming, both on himself and his party, but fuck that, this bitch needs to die quickly.

The most terrifying ability of the Siren is her lure. By projecting a glamer of what Merfolk Mark Boyd sees himself as, he can lure the unwitting into a deviant embrace. If this fiend succeeds, the hero it charms will rush to "her" side and fight on the beast's behalf, even if it means attacking his companions! Thankfully, the ability has a flaw - it counts as a debuff, so if you use Holy Water, odds are very good that it won't effect you, at least for the first few turns of the battle. Here, the fiend fails to charm Alex. Note that, like the Hag (if a hero is in the pot) or a later boss (if a hero is trapped), fleeing battle whilst a hero is charmed will cause them to die.

The team continues to pound away at the beast's scaled form, relying on Randall's demon transformation to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. The team takes turns throwing everything they can at this monster - Alex buffs the party and debuffs the enemy, Randall goes to town with his claws and horns, Techpriest heals, and Varg beats the target with his mace.

Again, she tries to lure a party member with offers of sexual favors, but Randall has already seen her true form and is not about to get his freak on with something that fugly. The attempt fails.

Varg proves to have beatdowns to spare and takes his aggression out on the fiend's minions as well.

Eventually she drops the pretense and starts hammering us with bleed attacks, since we're just not succumbing to attempts to turn us into fish-fucking sexual deviants.

The team ends the fight soonafter, but not without an enormous amount of stress buildup. Pressure Crash is kind of a bitch. At leas the fish is no longer a threat, and we've rendered things somewhat less-dangerous for the others for a while. Four of the early bosses remain.

That would have been handy immediately prior to this mission, you fucking pricks.

 

[c-no]

This is a match for the understudies. Today we lucked out, and a new arrival squeaked in at the perfect time. After literal days of terrible arbalests with even worse perks (and not a single fucking new class when there's like three I haven't used), we lucked out and noble @Varg Did Nothing Wrong joined the party.

A bit wet behind the ears, this Man-At-Arms proceeded to team up with @Randall Fragg, @Techpriest, and @alex_theman in an effort to take out a brand new threat, which, I'm hoping by coincidence, looks almost too much like Mark Boyd for my liking:

My lofty position wasn't always accompanied by the fear of office, and there was a time when I could walk the streets or raise a glass in the tavern without concern for molestation. Faithful as the tide, one precocious village waif made it her hobby to shadow my every errand. It was charming then, troublesome later.

Armed up, @Shuu Iwamine and @c-no's apprentices made a decent match for Randall and Varg, and the team advanced into the fetid depths with dire intent. This is a terrible thing wrought by the Ancestor, and while we do not yet know the full details, it appeared he created a filthy fish-tranny. This can not stand.

Whereas Shuu is an offensive powerhouse, Alex focuses primarily on support, nothing quite so usable as Invigorating Vapors. This powerful concoction allows Alex to overclock one ally's offense to a hilarious degree, though it only lasts a short time. On a character like Techpriest, it can cause his Daemon's Pull to do some real damage. On a character like Randall or Varg, this mega-strength allows them to punch most dudes into hamburger and tear lesser enemies limb from limb. Good stuff.

Keep an eye on those bloated zombies in the background, by the way. If you ever encounter them, take them down or stun them immediately. After two rounds, they'll self-destruct using the gasses in their body, doing tremendous damage to one character, as well as huge stress. You do not want this - at low level they can push a fragile character to Death's Door in a single go.

Our young heroes fight some real tough battles here. Randall winds up infected with Creeping Cough, crippling his offensive potential, but the team refuses to back off, fighting their way through illness and pain. Varg barks orders, Randall beats things to death with a fucking chain, and Alex hurls flashbangs as Techpriest debuffs enemies and saps their attack power.

Even our young heroes meet up with the trio of morons we have met literally every mission now. Though Techpriest is ostensibly a supporter, Weakening Hex is actually quite capable of causing damage, and often a timely use finishes off a weakened (but still alive) enemy.

Varg manages to shed Dark Temptation via psychedelic healing coral. We seriously need to package this shit and sell it because holy crap the number of psychiatric disorders we could heal in the greater world with this.

During their travels, Techpriest talks about his mentor, and describes how C-No became an Occultist. As it turns out, C-No has been beyond the veil. He has seen places that hide secrets - hidden, forsaken, and forbidden to the outside world, but all simply awaiting one who dares enough. C-No recovered the channeling device he uses - the skull of his old master - through this bleak spirit-journey, and C-No has seen things that we mortal minds were never meant to know. Techpriest has only touched upon the outer circles, and in time, he will walk them as well.

Our heroes soon meet the lair of the sea-witch herself. Chugging all their holy water, the team prepares for a terrifying enemy.

Looking nothing so much as a merfolk Mark Boyd, this terrifying entity was once human, or so rumors dictate. Simultaneously queen and slave to the fish-men, she is, like many problems caused by the Ancestor, another mistake we have to fucking clean up. I, for one, refuse to believe this and am convinced that that thing is male. Moreover, that the Ancestor was a tranny chaser. It just would make that much sense.

The Siren is an odd battle. If you prepared by using Holy Water, she is actually remarkably easy, especially if you keep pressure on. If you didn't, she is shockingly difficult and bringing characters like the Man-at-Arms or Houndmaster can fuck you over in the worst possible way. Thankfully this time we brought plenty, so many of her attacks will fail. She gets 2 attacks a turn, and her most well-known is pressure crash, a party-wide stress booster. She also summons backup, and uses a party-wide bleed attack.

Varg wins at screaming, and boosts the evade rate of his teammates in the process.

Fed up with this fish's shit, Randall transforms and starts going to work. His demonic form has enormous attack power, even with the illness - especially after Alex pumps him full of combat drugs. He builds stres transforming, both on himself and his party, but fuck that, this bitch needs to die quickly.

The most terrifying ability of the Siren is her lure. By projecting a glamer of what Merfolk Mark Boyd sees himself as, he can lure the unwitting into a deviant embrace. If this fiend succeeds, the hero it charms will rush to "her" side and fight on the beast's behalf, even if it means attacking his companions! Thankfully, the ability has a flaw - it counts as a debuff, so if you use Holy Water, odds are very good that it won't effect you, at least for the first few turns of the battle. Here, the fiend fails to charm Alex. Note that, like the Hag (if a hero is in the pot) or a later boss (if a hero is trapped), fleeing battle whilst a hero is charmed will cause them to die.

The team continues to pound away at the beast's scaled form, relying on Randall's demon transformation to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. The team takes turns throwing everything they can at this monster - Alex buffs the party and debuffs the enemy, Randall goes to town with his claws and horns, Techpriest heals, and Varg beats the target with his mace.

Again, she tries to lure a party member with offers of sexual favors, but Randall has already seen her true form and is not about to get his freak on with something that fugly. The attempt fails.

Varg proves to have beatdowns to spare and takes his aggression out on the fiend's minions as well.

Eventually she drops the pretense and starts hammering us with bleed attacks, since we're just not succumbing to attempts to turn us into fish-fucking sexual deviants.

The team ends the fight soonafter, but not without an enormous amount of stress buildup. Pressure Crash is kind of a bitch. At leas the fish is no longer a threat, and we've rendered things somewhat less-dangerous for the others for a while. Four of the early bosses remain.

That would have been handy immediately prior to this mission, you fucking pricks.

Nice to see that none have perished yet despite the increase in difficulty. Also nice to of comitted genocide against the deep ones. As for what I've seen, I've seen eldritch things no man should ever see. All through an eldritch thing known as the internet. Any that go on there is bound to be afflicted.

 

[Jaimas]

As @Shuu Iwamine, @Solzhenitsyn, @Cosmos, and @Burned Man explore the Weald, shit gets dangerous.

The enemies here just keep coming, and this is a Long-duration Veteran mission; the fucking thing just refuses to fucking end. Shuu and friends unleash everything they have; the Plague doctor is something of a brilliant knife-fighter thanks to her Bleeding Herb, which has made her a shockingly effective melee combatant in emergencies - not quite @Ol'_Slag's equal, but close, and she retains her kit of poisons and medicines for good measure.

Fortune smiles upon our team when they discover a secret room; Shuu hands out potions and tonics as Cosmos gives tactical advice. Solz's doggie keeps the group safe as they bunker down in this little hiding spot, and enjoy a bit of campfire stew.

Our team runs into these idiots again, but by now supplies are running down, stress is building, and the characters just keep getting battered by Giants, Cultists, and Brigands. We fight onward, but supplies are dwindling; torches are gone, food is limited and we've used all our shovels. It looks like we may have bitten off more than we can chew.

Finally, a brutal strike from an enemy pushes Shuu over the edge, and it looks like we may lose our first to insanity.

Wait, what's this?

Anger is power - unleash it!

Shuu becomes virtuous. Virtue happens very rarely, but when it does, the character uses all that pent-up stress to become truly heroic. Rather than snap and go insane, Shuu becomes a beacon of focused, white-hot rage and directs all her anger on the opponent that pissed her off to begin with. She becomes immune to stress for the rest of the mission and she bolsters the party with a +15% damage modifier every few rounds.

Shuu claims she's given the team special medicine that has made them invulnerable, and their attack power increases. In the pitch darkness of the battlefield, there's some concern as to the credibility of this, but the team fights on, before another blow causes Burned Man's stress to spike.

A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm...

Burned Man, too, refuses to break. He becomes focused, causing his accuracy to skyrocket. He, too, becomes impervious to stress and gives the entire party accuracy buffs.

The team refuses to die, and refuses to break. The monsters have to be intimidated by this shit. Convinced that their foes are still somehow mortal, the Ghoul pitches a skull at Cosmos' face.

A moment of valor shines brightest against a backdrop of despair.

Mother of god.

Cosmos goes Virtuous as well, and proceeds to immediately delete about 20 Stress off everyone.

Three of our team are now immune to stress and getting gigantic buffs every turn, in spite of the darkness and horror. Solz was close to breaking as well, but thanks to Cosmos, that shit just isn't happening now.

What follows is an ass-kicking the likes of which has been spoken of in legend.

Even with the team's hair-thin HP, with all of them Virtuous, there's literally nothing to fear. So long as they get off Death's Door if brought there, they essentially can't be stopped. Nothing stands in their way, and this most brutal of maps comes to a sudden, violent end as the team murders absolutely everything in a fit of righteous indignation.

That's a fucking satisfactory haul, too. Jesus. More than enough to finance their stay in the Sanitarium for the diseases they caught out there in the Weald. Unfortunately they kicked so much ass out there that they gained levels and now I have three level 5s. Oops. As long as I don't get a fourth, we're in no danger of the event I mentioned, but we need to start preparing for it sooner, rather than later, or we're fucked.

If ever there was an episode I'd like to see fanart of, it's this one.

 

[c-no]

If ever there was an episode I'd like to see fanart of, it's this one.

If fanart was made of it, one can image their kiwi avatars wearing the respective clothing of their class just killing everything in front of them with a pure rage of tism that is masked as virtuous.

 

[Ol' Slag]

As @Shuu Iwamine, @Solzhenitsyn, @Cosmos, and @Burned Man explore the Weald, shit gets dangerous.

The enemies here just keep coming, and this is a Long-duration Veteran mission; the fucking thing just refuses to fucking end. Shuu and friends unleash everything they have; the Plague doctor is something of a brilliant knife-fighter thanks to her Bleeding Herb, which has made her a shockingly effective melee combatant in emergencies - not quite @Ol'_Slag's equal, but close, and she retains her kit of poisons and medicines for good measure.

Fortune smiles upon our team when they discover a secret room; Shuu hands out potions and tonics as Cosmos gives tactical advice. Solz's doggie keeps the group safe as they bunker down in this little hiding spot, and enjoy a bit of campfire stew.

Our team runs into these idiots again, but by now supplies are running down, stress is building, and the characters just keep getting battered by Giants, Cultists, and Brigands. We fight onward, but supplies are dwindling; torches are gone, food is limited and we've used all our shovels. It looks like we may have bitten off more than we can chew.

Finally, a brutal strike from an enemy pushes Shuu over the edge, and it looks like we may lose our first to insanity.

Wait, what's this?

Anger is power - unleash it!

Shuu becomes virtuous. Virtue happens very rarely, but when it does, the character uses all that pent-up stress to become truly heroic. Rather than snap and go insane, Shuu becomes a beacon of focused, white-hot rage and directs all her anger on the opponent that pissed her off to begin with. She becomes immune to stress for the rest of the mission and she bolsters the party with a +15% damage modifier every few rounds.

Shuu claims she's given the team special medicine that has made them invulnerable, and their attack power increases. In the pitch darkness of the battlefield, there's some concern as to the credibility of this, but the team fights on, before another blow causes Burned Man's stress to spike.

A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm...

Burned Man, too, refuses to break. He becomes focused, causing his accuracy to skyrocket. He, too, becomes impervious to stress and gives the entire party accuracy buffs.

The team refuses to die, and refuses to break. The monsters have to be intimidated by this shit. Convinced that their foes are still somehow mortal, the Ghoul pitches a skull at Cosmos' face.

A moment of valor shines brightest against a backdrop of despair.

Mother of god.

Cosmos goes Virtuous as well, and proceeds to immediately delete about 20 Stress off everyone.

Three of our team are now immune to stress and getting gigantic buffs every turn, in spite of the darkness and horror. Solz was close to breaking as well, but thanks to Cosmos, that shit just isn't happening now.

What follows is an ass-kicking the likes of which has been spoken of in legend.

Even with the team's hair-thin HP, with all of them Virtuous, there's literally nothing to fear. So long as they get off Death's Door if brought there, they essentially can't be stopped. Nothing stands in their way, and this most brutal of maps comes to a sudden, violent end as the team murders absolutely everything in a fit of righteous indignation.

That's a fucking satisfactory haul, too. Jesus. More than enough to finance their stay in the Sanitarium for the diseases they caught out there in the Weald. Unfortunately they kicked so much ass out there that they gained levels and now I have three level 5s. Oops. As long as I don't get a fourth, we're in no danger of the event I mentioned, but we need to start preparing for it sooner, rather than later, or we're fucked.

If ever there was an episode I'd like to see fanart of, it's this one.

How the fuck did this happen? I have never seen three Virtuous. Bravo.

 

[Jaimas]

How the fuck did this happen? I have never seen three Virtuous. Bravo.

I had four once. It was during the fight with a certain asshole event boss.

 

[Sonic Speed Monkey]

We're just that fantastic.

 

[Jaimas]

Our party can no longer afford to fart around; we have to defeat the remaining bosses now, before the party average goes too high and we're forevermore locked out. This will not stand. A team of @Techpriest, @Randall Fragg, @alex_theman, and @Varg Did Nothing Wrong are quickly gathered together to deal with a threat that threatens the very village.

Simple folk are by their nature loquacious, and the denizens of the hamlet were no exception. It was not long before rumors of my morbid genius and secretive excavations began to fill local legend. In the face of my increasingly egregious flaunting of public taboos, awe turned to ire, and demonstrations were held in the town square.

Like all the bosses we have fought, this one is one brought about by the Ancestor; in this case, we have him to thank for the Brigands, who gained weapons, equipment, and firearms through the Ancestor's generous "donations," and he utilized them to keep order in the Hamlet. Here ties multiple quests, including those of Varg, @Ravelord, Jaimas, @Cosmos, and @Solzhenitsyn, just to name a few. The quest is simple: Find the Brigands' war machine, and destroy it.

While a low-level mission, the group cannot get complacent, and the team relies upon Alex's peddling of combat drugs in order to help defeat the powerful beasts that lurk the Weald. Those shitheads in the back are especially loathsome, being target markers and disease spreaders. Thankfully with Alex in the field we can reliably treat diseases at camp!

Good thing, too, because these faggots love to infect you with horrible Mexican don't-drink-the-water diseases. Alex gets infected despite her respirator, but takes it in stride, as she claims she can shed the disease when we set up camp later.

Varg and friends lead on, and Techpriest has started to come in handy when it comes to breaking open the enemy rear line; by giving him Abyssal Artillery, he's actually capable of causing harm now. Badass. The horrors that lurk are not a deterrent to our heroes, and every step brings us closer to the enemy weapon.

Alex proves her value as @Shuu Iwamine's understudy by having the same ability to cure bleed and blight (and tiny amounts of HP). Not only is this wicked handy if Techpriest's healing causes bleed, but it also helps shed the nigh-constant blight our party gets hit with in this mission. I don't know what's in that medicine they use, but god bless it.

That night, Alex cures the party of disease, purging the Scurvy from Randall and curing no less than three seperate diseases, including the Black Death, from herself. Techpriest uses his ability to commune with forces from the beyond in order to protect the campsite, and Varg explains to the group how we're going to take this war machine down with combat tactics training. The group makes an early night of it, and soon is on their merry way.

It isn't long before the group encounters the war machine - as well as its entourage.

The cannon, an 8-pounder, emblazoned with the shields of Varg's former unit, is a terrifying weapon of war - but it cannot operate on its own. The cannon's only action it can take is to summon reinforcements using a flare launcher; one of these reinforcements will always be a Matchman, whose ability allows the cannon to actually attack. To win this fight, the player must meticulously attack the cannon (whose defense is enormously high) while killing (or stunning) the Brigand Matchman. If he gets a turn, the cannon will fire and the damage it does is enormous - averaging 19 damage without criticals and doing around 15 stress for good measure. There is a chance that the cannon fucks up, in which case it will do absolutely nothing and the group will regain stress because of the dud round; this is about a 1-in-3 chance on Apprentice or Veteran and about a 1-in-4 chance on Champion. In addition to the cannon itself, you must contend with a constant flow of reinforcements.

The war is on.

Our party leads off by stunning the Matchman, then pounding on the cannon. Due to its immense armor, it has almost impervious defense and it's completely immune to most status effects. There's no other option here; Randall transforms and prepares to give these bastards what for.

Randall was a perfect choice here. His claws hit two enemies at once, and build damage, letting him easily control the front line and swat any oncoming Brigands to death while at the same time hammering the cannon.

Alex, meanwhile, makes sure that the newly-summoned Brigand Matchmen can't attack with her Blinding Gas bombs.

Techpriest then deals with the ruffians properly.

Bit by bit, inch by inch, hit point by hit point, our heroes grind away at the health pool of the iron-shod monstrousity. They barely take damage, though the attacks of the brigands and the stress of Randall being in Demonform is a thing.

Finally, a hex from Techpriest rips open the thing's side, and it collapses, oddly at home amongst the headstones and debrist littering this cesspool.

Some minor quibbling over diseases, but nothing we need to hold back for. Good thing too, because the most hideous boss yet is ahead.

 

[Jaimas]

Bellows of "AMANDA WAITE KILLED ELIZABETH" echo from beneath the Warrens.

Something terrible stirs.

The ways and rituals of blood sacrifice are difficult to master. Those from beyond require a physical vessel if they are to make the crossing into our reality. The timing of the chants is imperative: without the proper utterances at precise intervals, the process can fail spectacularly.

This one's terrifying. But is the real threat this massive swinefolk, or something more? It matters little, and our team from the last match, consisting of @Varg Did Nothing Wrong, @Randall Fragg, @alex_theman, and @Techpriest unite to deal with this terrifying force.

The map to this one is hilariously straightforward, to the point where it's not unheard of for a player to start literally right next to the boss room. Keep your wits about you though, because you don't want to engage this bastard unprepared. The team intends to get close, then camp to shred the diseases caught last mission.

The group finds a book that gives Alex a new quirk, and after dinner and a brief rest, the team is ready for the boss, who was two rooms away from the start.

Behold, the team that has been jokingly called ADF and Greta by other Kiwi Let's Spergers. This boss consists of two unique enemies; the Swine Prince (Greta), and Wilbur (ADF). The two fight together and the little guy acts as his buddy's eyes. Simply put, ADF will mark party members, and Greta will respond by pounding the shit out of who he marks with a giant metal cleaver. If you hit ADF, she'll respond with overpowering force, countering by attacking who did it, and if you kill ADF, she will go berserk, using party-wide, devstating attacks every turn and pretty much guaranteeing a TPK if you aren'r quick.

The key is to kill the big guy first. There's a few ways to handle this; one way is to get an Arbalest like Cosmos to use flares to remove marks, cutting the damage Greta does. A more efficient way, if you're clever, is to repeatedly debuff Greta's attack power; doing so a few times basically makes her struggle to breach single-digit damage. Since this is Techpriest's bread and butter, he goes right to work.

After initially stunning him with Randall, the team begins pounding Greta. Techpriest throws all of the debuffs on, and succeeds at getting Greta's attack power cut by almost 90%. with this, even Greta's criticals, normally terrifying, are reduced to chip damage and her overall offense transformed into a terrible joke.

While Techpriest whittles down this bastard's attack power, Alex and Randall take turns stacking blight after blight on Greta, and soon the monster is taking over 20 points of damage in residual damage alone.

Three turns later, Greta is dead, the poison dissolving her into putrid sludge.

With Greta gone, ADF holds his own, mostly using enfuriatingly high-success-rate party-wide stuns.

Until Varg shuts him the fuck up, at least. Die, Phil.

With this, three of the five bosses that initially escaped our wrath have fallen, and all that remains next is to finish off the remaining two. Varg and Randall are pushed out of the running by leveling up, which means we cannot rely on either for the battles ahead.

Thankfully, two new arrivals have come, and will be helping us take on the next boss ahead. With two to go, we're almost past this crucial first step.

 

[alex_theman]

Alex proves her value...

I'm a guy. I'm fine with the character in game being a girl though.

 

[Jaimas]

New recruits @AnOminous and @lolwut join the party - a secondary crusader with an emphasis on healing and defense, and a Bounty Hunter.

This new class is a brute-force melee unit with an ability to do big damage against human targets and enemies who are either stunned or marked. A very versatile combatant, armed with deadly Salamancan combat techniques, Lolwut wields a hand axe and a vicious hook in combat. AnOminous handles similarly to Jaimas, but unlike Jaimas is not saddled with three weeks worth of terrible quirks to sort out. Good times.

They're immediately enlisted to fight the most disgusting foe yet. Our new recruits join up with @Varg Did Nothing Wrong and @alex_theman and proceed deeper into the Warrens.

My zeal for blood rituals and summoning rites had begun to ebb, as each attempt invariably brought only failure and disappointment. Progress was halting, and the rapidly accumulating surplus of wasted flesh had become burdensome.

It seems that the Ancestor eventually got tired of his attempts at summoning extraplanar entities, with his most successful creation being the uselessly stupid Swine Prince, who we defeated last episode. He was left with the problem of a massive amount of horrifyingly-possessed pig flesh that couldn't easily be disposed of. The Ancestor found the solution to this problem once his excavations broke into a vast, ancient system of tunnels and aqueducts. He poured the nightmarish, shape-shifting flesh into the Warrens, and promptly forgot about it. Now, like every problem we've dealt with up till this point, it falls upon us to murder it.

The newcomers quickly prove extremely effective. AnOminous, not saddled with Jaimas' irksome Kleptomaniac or Curious quirks is able to frontline with surprising potency, and Lolwut's a terrifyingly efficient heavy hitter in his own right. Varg in slot three is weird but it works, swapping his moveset and using him primarily as a defensive support.

AnOminous also has Jaimas' "I have a fucking scroll" attack, presumably this one arguing that pigfolk are fucking stupid and establishing a legal precedent for recognizing them as stupid. This triggers them with such force that it causes actual damage, similar to Jaimas' complaints about Skeletons.

Meanwhile, in another dungeon entirely:

The retribution gambit for Varg works damned well.

Retribution is Varg's version of Duelist's Riposte. Though it's less powerful, it marks Varg, basically guaranteeing he'll be hit by certain foes - and when that happens, he'll quickly punch them in the balls for the attempt. More than once some enemy has gone after Varg, thinking he's wide open, only to unexpectedly eat a shield bash and fucking die.

Lolwut is all about brute force. Right out the gate he hits harder and deeper than almost every character of his type and his sheer utility is a sight to behold. Since most of the Swine count as human (or at least partly), Lolwut can do considerable damage to them, and since he's a pretty hard hitter in the first place, he handles mooks well. Alex takes advantage by buffing him and AnOminous for some glorious ripping and/or tearing.

While relatively light, AnOminous doubles as a healer. Like Jaimas, he's able to heal stress reliably. Unlike Jaimas he can also just flat-out heal HP instead. While he never quite equates Ambivalenz or Techpriest, the fact that he even can do it means a squad needs somewhat less healing in the field, which is always an asset.

Our team continues to fight through the ruin, healing up injuries and poison as they go. Unfortunately, Varg contracts like three diseases rapid fire, absolutely crippling his ass. This doesn't bode well.

I then remember that we brought Alex with us. A night's rest later and Varg's cured of every single illness and then some. AnOminous lowers everyone's stress, and Lolwut goes over how we are going to kill the upcoming boss. Refreshed, fed, and shockingly Black Plague-free now (thank you Alex), the group moves on.

Soonafter, we reach the door to the beast's lair. Despite the Warrens generally being a terrible place, it's absolutely hilariously easy to reach the bosses of it. Ahead lies our prey.

The Flesh is a terrifying monster, though it's ironically one of the easiest bosses. It consists of four separate parts, which will, in turn, cycle through four separate forms at random. The four forms each part can take are a head, a spine, a heart, and an ass (seriously). All of them have a unique attack, too: The head bites, doing damage and causing bleed. The spine whips, dealing damage and stunning. The heart uses a self-heal ability. The ass uses a tentacle strike (eww) that causes Blight (EWW). All four pieces share a healthbar, and can be hit by status effects or damage individually. Each round, all four parts will randomly change into one of the other forms. All of them have decent defense, except the Heart, which has none.

Because its parts share a healthbar, this boss is hilariously, terrifyingly weak to blight and bleed. @Solzhenitsyn could do upwards of 8 damage a round by his lonesome just through residual damage with one use of Hound's Harry, to say nothing of @KidKitty using Harvest (6 Bleed/round) or @Shuu Iwamine's Plague Grenade (10 Blight/Round). It's also hilariously vulnerable to multi-target attacks. Time for a beatdown.

The fight leads off with a terrifying bight from the creature's anus, but a timely block and subsequent counter from Varg leaves it reeling.

AnOminous lays down more edicts, dealing more damage and the group continues to pound away at the beast.

Lolwut, tiring of all this "Strategy" crap, elects to use the faultless tactic of "hit the fucker really hard."

The Flesh falls to ruin soonafter. The second any part is reduced to zero, all of the Flesh dies. A terrifying aberration, brought low by a team of rookies. Said team are now rookies no longer, and the entire team has earned the truckload of upgrades they're about to get. This team paid for themselves.

 

[Jaimas]

We need to carefully balance things so that our teams can grind cash and treasure but not level up. Lacking any appropriate hero that can heal, I place my stock in a desperate gambit and a terribly lopsided party, leading off with @BOLDYSPICY!, @Burned Man, @KidKitty, and @Ravelord.

It's a Weald mission on Veteran, too. "Absolutely terrifying" barely begins to describe it.

I immediately encounter a Shambler Altar. I weigh my options a moment. The situation is already steeply pitched against us. Dare I even attempt it?

Fuck it.

Boldy leads the charge against this terrifying abomination, intent on teaching the lesson that if it's intent on littering the dungeons with its summoning artifacts, then Boldy will litter the ground with its severed limb-tentacles.

This battle is literally no different between difficulties, except for the increased health and armor of the Shambler, the increased speed/damage/stress of the tentacles, and the amount of bleed/blight induced. Suffice to say the Shambler is an absolute nightmare to fight, but against all odds, the group slays the abomination.

The reward for the team's victory is the outstandingly powerful Ancestor's Candle, an amazing artifact that combines the best aspects of the Feather Crystal and Sun Ring into one item whilst only having the downside of the latter. This is an amazing item as long as you can keep light above fifty, and it goes right the fuck on Boldy, since it gives everything she needs - damage increases, Speed, and Dodge Rate.

Boldy has, despite her staggering alcoholism, become one of the most powerful characters I have ever fielded. Her sheer attack power is trumped only by Burned Man, who specifically is optimized for that purpose. Unlike Burned Man, Boldy has a host of upsides; she can take hits pretty well, is extremely fast, and is evasive enough to avoid some lower-level foes. Good stuff. Burned Man still has her beat in sheer tankiness and damage output, though. Ravelord and KidKitty, meanwhile, prove themselves to be quite ubiquitous and help keep our healer-less team moving forward.

A fucking brutal pogrom later, the team has explored the Weald entirely. The team has earned a well-needed rest.

Nobody leveled up, which is good. And then Boldy got fucking Slugger, which is incredible. As of this moment, she is, officially, the most powerful Hellion I have ever fielded. The combination of Precise Striker, Slugger, and Evasive have turned Boldy into a fuck-mothering death machine fueled by alcohol and the blood of weird fungal things, and KidKitty has gotten himself a surprisingly good quirk that fills out his allotment. I keep hoping he gets Evasive, since he could use it, but Irrepressible isn't bad at all. Boldy and Burned Man have both earned a week off in the Sanitarium, however.

Once back at town, I am told that if I don't take him on the next mission, @Randall Fragg will embrace his Commander Stryker-esque wolf soul and level up automatically. This is fine since he and his usual team (@alex_theman, @Varg Did Nothing Wrong, @Techpriest) will be going out on the next assignment anyway. I hope to christ we get some decent new blood next week or this is going to be a fucking awkward period lurching towards an event that may get us all killed.

 

[Techpriest]

One thing I've noticed is that early game, if you don't get an Occultist or second Vestal, you really start struggling for steady heals or high endurance teams. Still, in a pinch a combo of the Crusader and Arbalest makes for a surprisingly potent team comp.

 

[Bob's Fries]

Man, it's been a while since I played this. Time to dust it off again and give it a whirl.