A couple of sessions back, we encountered a mysterious cave where Ice and Leaf held sway, buffing up the elementals of Winter and Spring as we made our way through the cavern to solve the puzzle at the far end. That puzzle lead to this entirely, all new cave, where Wind and Fire rule. I guess that leaves Light and Dark for the last one? Because this is a trilogy… of TERROR!
Or a trilogy of something. Frosthaven’s calendar system throws scenarios into the future where you will stumble upon them in some future game session so that, on that night, well, the scenario you wanted to play has been delayed because something important has happened and you need to address it right now!
The Death Walker leaving us last session opened up the Town Hall, which unlocks challenges that can be added to scenarios to make them happen. Death Walker’s replacement, the Inox Drifter, now has a personal quest to defeat twelve challenges. These challenges don’t affect only the Drifter; everyone has to struggle with them. Last night’s challenge was to always attack at a disadvantage unless you were below half health.
Banner Spear had just turned level 5, and combined with an item she wore, her maximum health was 19. Luckily for her, her very first encounter with the creatures in the first room slashed her health below that; she spent nearly the entire scenario with 4-6 points of health.
Ruins of the Equinox is split into two rooms. In the first, a strong wind bounces from side to side, pushing back anything in its row and also keeping the Wind element strong. This was a minor benefit to the Banner Spear, as she has a wind-powered melee attack, but it was even more of a benefit to the many Wind Demons in the room, whose already powerful attacks were made even more so with that power.
There were plenty of traps in the room as well. We played them a little bit wrong; at least some of the traps should have been set off by the monsters themselves (which would have been nice, as nearly all the monsters in the first room had shields; trap damage ignore shields). Some of the mobs also summoned flame demons, giving us yet more mobs to fight.
Since the scenario goal was to kill all monsters (and loot tokens from each of the fire pits in the second room), additional monsters brought via summoning is just more stuff to kill. My Banner Spear was able to use her pulls to hurt some of the mobs, and got a really good AE off on a lucky row of monsters. She was finally coming into her own, and I think she might have made her second mastery. She did not finish the scenario; loss cards and lack of health had her exhausted just after opening the second room, but she died doing what she loved; hitting monsters with AEs, pulling them into traps, and dancing away to die in a fire pit, token in hand.
The Drifter also had a lot of really good AEs that seemed to require some setup to get things into position. Blink Blade was, as usual, devastatingly effective, while Bone Shaper’s many summons continued to keep the monsters off our backs. In the end, we did win.
Banner Spear’s personal quest had her gain 150xp from card xp alone, and that goal was met. Bone Shaper’s personal quest triggered upon unlocked buildings, and that was met as well. I will take up the Vermling Trapper, who would have had a literal blast in this scenario. The Banner Spear unlocked the Library; the Trapper’s personal quest is now to create the Abyss Axe and kill a lot of frozen enemies.
Bone Shaper will move to the Kelp (Crashing Tide), a giant Lurker. Kelp’s personal quest is to kill robotic enemies. As this dovetails neatly with Blink Blade’s personal quest, Kasul immediately set us on the path to the machine world.
Ruins of the Equinox had its own scenario effect; you start the scenario with wounds, and the last room has everyone take a point of damage at the beginning of their move (it’s so hot!). Combined with the challenge disadvantage, I was shocked we managed to win it. I felt sure we’d be trying it again at a lower level. Our characters were 5+5+4+3, so 17 / 4 = 4 (rounded down), / 2 = 2, so we played it at level 2. Since we’re at prosperity level 3, the new characters start at 3 so next session will be 3 + 5 + 3 + 3, 14 / 4 (rounded down) is 3, divided by 2 = 1. I think those calculations are correct, but it might be the next session is an easier one to get used to working with all these new characters.
Until next time!
