by Sandy Petersen | Feb 26, 2018 | BLOG, Design Corner, Planet Apocalypse, Sandy's Design Corner | 1038 Views
The Philtre
The Philtre is of course named after healing potions and the like. I originally called it the Catholicon, which is an old term for a universal medicine, but I feared folks would misunderstand and think I was somehow slamming the Church. Which I’m not. I did keep the term “Catholicon” in use for its ability though.
While the Philtre is in play, all the enemies have 1 extra toughness. Thus, the Limbo minions are 2 instead of 1. The first circles are 4 instead of 3, and so forth. This adds a little more grit to the battle, and it can be pretty bad at times. For example, say you are attacking a 2nd circle minion with a 1d8 attack (not uncommon). With the Philtre in play, you move from a 25% chance of killing the fiend to a mere 12.5% chance. Half as much!
The Philtre itself isn’t very dangerous, with a doubled toughness of 2+2 and a meager 4d6 attack. The doubled toughness means it is going probably take a couple of turns to kill him, which means you won’t be able to stop the other demons on the map while he’s around – at least not too effectively.
Once you kill him, the other demons are that much closer to the exit, and you are under the gun for time and effort.
Lord Argus
Argus is another demon lord who is based on a Greek legend – the fabled herdsman with a thousand eyes. In the sculpt, the eyes are arranged around him in a sort of pattern, but it’s not an attractive one!
Lord Argus’s menace is to immediately place a Fiend in his area when the heroes enter. Usually there is already an invasion token, so this is really an extra Fiend, beyond whatever is rolled. It does mean you don’t want to hit him for a small attack (this makes sense for some of the other lords) – you want to stick it out a bit and get some real whacks in.
Argus is Toughness 6 and rolls 6d10 which are tough, but he is a demon Lord after all. His real threat is his Decree ability. This means that all minions in Argus’s room combine their attacks into one big attack along with Argus, rolling all their dice in one humongous attack.
Battling Argus
Consider this – say that it’s fairly early in the game, and the despair dice are up to 6. When you enter Argus’s area, first he spawns a Fiend, then you have to roll the despair dice. The BEST possible result you could get with 6 dice is two 1st circles plus 2 limbo minions, which is 4 enemies, plus that Fiend. If you don’t trim back the herd before Argus attacks, someone on your team will be facing 6d10 (argus) +2d10 (the fiend) + 2d10 (the first circles) +2d6 (the limbo minions) for the attack. That’s potentially 12 damage, though admittedly 2-3 of the dice will probably miss. Still, that’s a lethal attack in a game where most heroes are at around 4-7 health.
Of course, realistically some players will roll too low to hurt Argus, but will be able to kill a Limbo minion or a Gryllus (first circle), so that will reduce the backfire. But not much. Also let’s remember that this is if you get the best possible spawn roll, and there are only 6 despair dice.
Based on my experience, your final battle with Argus will probably be when he is rolling more like 10 despair dice, which means the minimum number of enemies you can face are 8, plus that damned Fiend (damned literally as well as figuratively). You won’t be able to trim that herd back, and will need to either sacrifice a hero killed when Argus strikes, or have someone who is beefed up with lots of troopers – who will all be destroyed in Argus’s attack.
More than any other lord you have to start off trying to kill his minions instead of him, so that his counter attack can’t simply eliminate a player straight away. This is also a tough choice, because Argus has a lot of hit points, in addition to a high toughness. In a 4 player game, he has 20 health (compare to Baphomet’s 15 or Jabootu’s 18).
There is a reason Argus has 2 crowns. He is mean, and if you defeat him (as I admittedly have done) you have cause to crow.
by Sandy Petersen | Feb 26, 2018 | BLOG, Design Corner, Planet Apocalypse, Sandy's Design Corner | 1159 Views
Great Cthulhu?!
Has Sandy Lost His Mind?
Well … perhaps. But the reason Cthulhu has made his appearance is for the following reasons: first, some folks had been asking for a Keith Thompson Lovecraftian image. Second, yes I know that Cthulhu is a different genre universe from the monotheistic revelation of Planet Apocalypse. But consider – we have placed entities named Humbaba, Geryon, and Pulgasaur in the game, the idea being that these names all reflect an actual demon somewhere behind (or below) reality. The concept here is really that Lovecraft also had “a glimpse behind the curtain” and based Cthulhu – the Doom That Cannot Be Stayed – on what he understood.
So this is the reality behind Lovecraft’s story, at least in Planet Apocalypse.
So how does Cthulhu work?
First off, he has possibly the most challenging menace in the game. When you enter Hell Time with Cthulhu, each player chooses how many Sanity tokens he wants. For each such token, he also gets 1 courage and 1 luck. (Yes, a player can choose to accept 0 Sanity tokens).
When it’s the players turn to attack, he MUST retreat if he has no Sanity tokens left. If he has at least 1 Sanity token however, he MUST discard 1 Sanity token, and then stay and attack – he CANNOT retreat, no matter how much he may wish to. So you have to figure out ahead of time just how long you plan to stay under Cthulhu’s shadow. The first few times you play against him, it will be a challenge to get it anywhere near right.
Next, when it is Cthulhu’s turn to attack, he first rolls 1d4. This is how many times he gets to attack. Each attack can be against a different target though, if the team captain so desires.
Oh yes, he has 6 toughness, 6d12 attack, and 25 health vs. 4 players, which is all strong, but what do you expect. The real problem is the multiple attacks which are semi-randomized so you don’t know how many you have in store, and the menace in which you have to decide how long to stay ahead of time.
You think you’ve solved his riddle?
I can see people thinking, “Wait, I know. I’ll ONLY ever stay 1 round in Cthulhu’s shadow. That way he won’t be able to wipe us out, and we can return on the next turn or so.” The problem with this decision is that when you enter Hell Time, an invasion token spawns. When you assault Cthulhu, the token is resolved. Then after you retreat, the minions who popped out of the token (less whatever minions you managed to kill) will march forward, and a new invasion token will spawn in Cthulhu’s area. You really can’t afford to keep popping all of these invasion tokens turn after turn without trying to clean them up, or you’ll lose based just on Doom lost by inability to spawn new demons.
You see, normally you want to stay 2-4 rounds in a Lord’s area – the first round and part of the second are spent mopping up the invasion token, so it can’t interfere. Then the rest of the second round, and all of the remainder are spent pounding on the Lord. If you never stay more than 1 round in Cthulhu’s area, you’ll either have to ignore the minions, or not hit Cthulhu at all.
Don’t take my word for it. You’ll be able to try it out soon! Because we are STILL on track for everything being done in a timely and effective manner.
by Sandy Petersen | Feb 24, 2018 | BLOG, Design Corner, Planet Apocalypse, Sandy's Design Corner | 1194 Views
Pack of the Pit – all the Demons
The Hortator
Ever seen a movie about ancient Rome featuring galley slaves? You may notice that at one end of the banks of oars sits a muscular shirtless guy pounding on two drums with mallets, keeping the time for the rowers. That dude was named the “Hortator” by the Romans. And yes, it’s root is the same as the English word “Exhort”.
The Hortator causes every demon group to add 1 die to their attack. Thus, a group of 4 Limbo minions will roll 5d6 instead of 4d6. A lone 2nd circle demon will roll 3d10 instead of 2d10, and so forth. At least the demons aren’t harder to kill – they just do more damage. Unfortunately, this is one of the few 4th circle demons whose effect does include the Lord – so most lords will now roll 7 dice instead of 6.
Fighting The Hortator
The Hortator takes a while to take down, with a Toughness of 3+3. His attack is weak, only 4d8, but he doesn’t really need a strong attack – his bonus is benefiting all the other demons on the map instead.
If your heroes are mean enough that you typically expect to kill all the demons in an area before they can attack, you needn’t sweat the Hortator. Of course, my own heroes have never proven to be quite THAT mean …
The Raparee
The word “Raparee” refers to a wild Irish robber or guerilla fighter. The figure is one of our creepiest, since it basically looks like an arachnid of some type (perhaps a vinegaroon) made out of human body parts. I love it.
The Raparee is sort of a companion horror to the Nuckelavee, except instead of stealing toughness, he steals courage. When the Raparee spawns, ALL the courage that every player has, plus ALL the courage in the courage pool, is placed on the Raparee’s card. This can be a lot of courage. You can get the courage back by killing the Raparee. Of course if it escapes the map, the courage is gone forever.
Like the Nuckelavee, you usually can’t afford to ignore the Raparee. The team needs that courage. His toughness of 5 isn’t encouraging, but at least his attack is only 4d8, which is far from the worst among 4th circle demons.
The Raparee’s menace is rather conditional. If you’ve been saving up Courage for a big purchase, he is really nasty. If you’ve been living hand-to-mouth, not so much.
Refreshing the Gift Panel
The Gift panel starts off with 10 gifts, face-up and visible to all players. As the players buy gifts, the panel depletes (it doesn’t refresh itself automatically). When the Lord track finally reaches 1 (minimum of 3 turns, and usually more), then any remaining gifts are discarded from the panel, and 10 new gifts are drawn.
It’s quite common for players near the time of the Lord track recycling to hold off on gift buying, hoping to see what the 10 new gifts look like. Particularly since the remaining gifts on the track have been picked over by the players and are normally those gifts that don’t seem useful at this time, or are too expensive, or unsuitable for the heroes in play. (All gifts are useful some of the time, but not all the time.)
Why bring this up now? Because the time the Gift panel refreshes is ALSO the same time the new 4th circle demon comes out. And if that’s the Raparee, he gets a windfall of courage that the players can ill-afford to lose.
The Gadarene
The Gadarene is the emblem of the biblical tale of the possessed swine, and so is a pig-monster. He may seem to stand somewhat awkwardly. This is intentional. If you have seen a dog, cat, or other trained animal walk on its front legs, you’ll note that the hind legs dangle uselessly, in a rather creepy manner. The Gadarene posture is supposed to reflect this.
The Gadarene’s special effect only happens when it spawns, but the effects echo on. Basically, every hero and every ambush has to move two areas towards the demon gate. Ambushes who enter Hell Time are killed. If a hero enters Hell Time, a lord battle starts.
This “panic run” is based on the tale in which the Gadarene swine ran recklessly over a cliff, and symbolizes this terror.
This totally messes up the player’s ambush structure, and leaves all the areas near the exit vacant besides. It’s a serious problem. Often players are forced to “use up” carefully set ambushes to absorb damage, rather than let them be overrun by the lord and killed.
Fighting The Gadarene
He’s pretty tough, with a Toughness 6 and an attack of 6d12. So players may want to avoid him, taking the 4-Doom hit. This is a particularly easy choice because the Gadarene has no ongoing effect (unlike the Hellhound) nor does he have a needed reward (unlike the Nuckelavee). Of course 4 Doom is nothing to sneer at, but at least you’re not forced into the fight, as you are with so many other demons.
It pretty much did the worst when it first spawned.
Lord Humbaba
Humbaba’s name comes from the legendary scorpion man of Sumerian myth. But he is no more a “man” than a “scorpion”. His “stinger” is a grimacing head. His “pinchers” are animal skulls. His legs are hooved and woolly- rather sheep-like.
Lord Humbaba’s gives the players Pestilence equal to their number. Of course, they could (and often do) divide this up 1 per player, but sometimes it’s wise for one hero to accept an extra Pestilence or two to spare one of the others. Humbaba’s attack, is a doozy – while only 6d8, it hits all heroes equally. Plus, each hero so hit gains 1 damage per pestilence.
Humbaba is Toughness 5 (not too bad) and has 20 hit points vs. 4 players, which is tough, but not unthinkably so. His real threat is the huge amount of damage he pumps out, forcing players to evacuate before they may wish to.
Battling Humbaba
With most bosses, it’s possible for a hero to go up to fight even if he’s wounded. After all, some other hero can intercept the hits for you, and you can simply participate by attacking and helping others with their attacks. When those other heroes have lost their health cushion, you simply retreat, having lost nothing.
Or, you can rotate who’s getting hit between rounds. This enables four heroes, each at ¬a good health level, to stay for four rounds (possibly more) before they need to evacuate – each hero taking 1 attack from the lord in turn. So you may be able to beat down that lord a few points with four rounds.
But with Humbaba, EVERYONE gets attacked EVERY time. So if you are low in health, you simply don’t want to enter his room. He could kill you. So Humbaba often only has to face a sub-set of the heroes, and they can’t stay nearly as long – no rotation of attacks is possible.
The only solution is you need to attack Humbaba more often than other lords, but you can’t stay as long. And after that attack, everyone has pestilence which you need to cure. Plus you’re taking more damage while IN Humbaba’s room because the pestilence adds to your damage. It’s bad.
Adding injury to insult, Humbaba’s reward only gives you courage after you retreat. On the plus side, you probably won’t need an influx of courage in Humbaba’s area, since you won’t stay long enough to use it all up.
Lord Orobas
Orobas’s name comes from an medieval demon, a lord who sits on a throne. I have made the throne thematic. If you look at the figure, you can see the withered figure, ensconced in the throne. But the throne itself is alive, with limbs and a head. So is Orobas the throne? Or the sitter? Or both? This is oen of my favorite figures, with its ambiguity, sense of impotence-yet-power, and arrogant nature.
Lord Orobas’s menace is simply an immediate attack. However, he is frightening not only because he rolls 6d12, but because his Toughness is an amazing 9 – the highest in the game. This means even a mighty 1d12 attack only hits Orobas 25% of the time, and d8s and less have no chance. This is serious business. He has plenty of hit points too, with 20 for a 4 player game.
Fortunately, Orobas’s abilities and rewards are actually weakness, representing his haughty and condescending nature. First, his Reward is that when you are Orobas’s target, you earn a Royal token. If you take 3 or more damage, you get a second Royal token. (That’s pretty common, because 6d12 packs a punch.)
You can spend these Royal tokens during the lord fight, either after Orobas attacks, or when you do. If you spend the token after Orobas attacks, you increase your toughness by 3 vs that attack only. If you spend the token after you attack, you can add and roll 1d12 more per token.
Battling Orobas
Orobas quite simply is really really hard to hit. It’s all about trying to hit him. The best way to do it is to save up those Lord tokens, and spend them each time you’ve failed to score a hit, giving you a 25% chance per token of hitting him. Also use lots of courage to help other players, and bring up their attacks to at least 1d12.
It’s a sucker’s game to use the Royal tokens too often to avoid damage from Orobas – for one thing, usually you WANT to take damage, to garner more Royal tokens. But of course if the attack would otherwise kill you, or bring you too far down, it’s a choice. It’s really nice that you get to increase the toughness after seeing the roll., so you know if it will work of not.
Remember that Orobas’s menace – his free attack – is actually beneficial in a sense, because it earns his target a Royal token right off the bat. I’ve seen players, desperate for Royal tokens, hop into Orobas’s area, take the menace hit, then immediately leave, happy with their token.
by Sandy Petersen | Feb 23, 2018 | BLOG, Design Corner, Planet Apocalypse, Sandy's Design Corner | 1324 Views
Cissy Salem
Cissy is intended to be a typical goth girl. No doubt she was a big fan of Behemoth and Pallbearer back in the day, got a pentagram tattoo (which she now regrets, like everyone else who gets a pentagram tattoo), and wore nothing but black in high school.
Now, with Hell rising, she feels her special insight into the dark realms may prove useful. And who knows, she may be right! All those metal lyrics are still rattling around in her head.
She has a puny 1d4 attack, an average Toughness and starting Luck (2 & 3 respectively), and a decent health of 6.
Her start ability is Occult Interest which lets her pay health instead of courage for her gifts. This is extremely useful, particularly if she is within 1-2 points of a gift’s cost. It means she gets to use that gift a whole turn earlier, which can really make the difference at times.
Her whole character is built around self-martyrdom, in which she is able to gain usefulness as she pushes herself, hurting her health and bringing her down, but also bringing her up psychologically and spiritually. Think of it as the modern equivalent to a flagellant – the mental discipline and spiritual strength from suffering turned to good.
She has Good With Gloom as her first obtained ability. This lets her Help other players by paying health instead of courage, and again, this is good in a pinch. When another player absolutely can use a die increase, Cissy can do it even when her courage is spent.
Her other ability takes a while to get – and is usually her last (but not always). This is Angst. This is exceedingly handy before the final battle with the boss, but is also good at other times. It lets her permanently reduce her health cap by 1, then she heals up to her new full health. For example, say her health cap is currently 8, but her health is only 1 (not unusual). By using Angst, she drops her health cap to 7, but then rises up to 7. Probably in the late game, she would normally never expect to be able to reach her health cap again, so this is a terrific bonus.
Her weakness is that, as a goth, she is hardly a leadership figure. Her uninspiring nature means that when she recruits, she rolls 2d4 and has to choose the lower of the two rolls, so generally she is stuck with a lowly volunteer or citizen militia.
How Cissy works
She has an excellent tech tree. One upgrade increases an attack die, and another gives her 1d10. Thus if she takes no attack gifts, her final attack is either 1d12+1d4 or 1d10+1d6 which is quite respectable. She also has two gifts which increase her health & health cap – in preparation for late-game use of angst. The fact that she gets exactly two such boosts is not coincidental – if she gets both, she’ll have a health cap of 8. Then, using Angst once, she’ll have a remaining health of 7. This means that she can survive one round of the Lord’s attack without trooper support. Because the Lords (except for Chthon) only roll 6 dice. That ensures that the players can weather one whole round without taking any chances.
Fighting the Lords – a note
The major consideration when fighting a Lord is when to retreat. There are two decision points in this. First is when you calculate that the Lord’s attack has a chance of killing a hero. This happens when no hero has Health+troopers of 7 or more points (because most Lords can theoretically do 6 damage tops). When playing it safe, heroes typically run away as soon as the Lord’s attacks drop them to this level.
The second decision point is when you calculate that the Lord’s attack is almost certain to kill a hero. For example, let’s say you are fighting Baphomet, and Cissy has been brought down to exactly 6 health (and no other hero is better off). If Baphomet’s wall is gone, so his attack is 6d8, he has a chance to kill Cissy. But it’s quite likely that all eight dice will not hit. In fact, there is only a 10% chance of this happening. Is it worth staying for an extra round to risk this 10% possibility? Hmm.
On the other hand, if your toughest hero is down to 3-4 points, then even Baphomet is probably going to kill one of them with his attack. At this point, you are expecting him to whittle down the heroes, and the only reason to stick around is the hope that the remaining heroes can benefit from his victim’s martyrdom, by remaining for another round. You can see this happening on the Moonbase map playthrough – Lincoln realizes if we stay in the fight, he will probably die, yet we do so. He dies, but we actually manage to kill the Lord in the next round (barely, but a miss is as good as a mile). Hurray for Lincoln!
by Sandy Petersen | Feb 23, 2018 | BLOG, Design Corner, Planet Apocalypse, Sandy's Design Corner | 1228 Views
Heroes of the Pit
Amelia Azevedo
Amelia Azevedo is a firefighter and emergency medical technician. She is inspirational, if a bit too willing to think of others instead of herself.
She’s pretty good. Attack 1d8, starting Luck 4. Unfortunately, she only has a Toughness of 1 so that’s not so hot. Basically she can dish it out, but not really take it. At least her health of 7 lets her get hit a few times before she has to resort first aid.
Her starting ability is really great – it lets her bring another hero along with her when she moves. Because this question always comes up, no she cannot drop (or pick up) her “carried” hero as she moves. He has to stay with her from start to end. This is good not only for carrying heroes back out of the firing line so they can be safe, but can also be used to take one along to give you help in an attack.
Her other abilities are Emergency Care and Veteran. The first lets her remove Stun, Fire, and Pestilence markers in her area. The second lets her inflict extra damage on the dreaded 4th circle demons. Basically if she does any damage to one, she adds +1 more. This is handy, but she can’t get it for a while into the game.
Her weakness is that troopers absorb 1 less damage on her behalf. This means that the basic troopers such as Gang or Volunteers are absolutely valueless as damage blocks. And even good soldiers like the National Guard or Canadian Mounties only block half as much (1 instead of 2). Naturally, this can be discouraging.
She has another “ability” built into her tech tree. Namely, her starting gift slot costs 0. So she can kick off the game with an immediate gift. Of course if she picks a gift with a bonus cost (such as Angelic Wrath), she has to pay the bonus, but that’s usually only 2 courage (rarely 4). Cheap.
Choices in Play
Let’s talk about one of the fundamental tactical decisions in Planet Apocalypse. In the Hero phase, heroes have three actions they can take (occasionally more) – these are Attack, Move, and Set Ambush. Most of the time it’s just Attack and Move, even. But you can take these actions in any order. Thus, you could set an ambush, then attack, then move, or move then attack, and so forth.
A lot of heroes have abilities that play off of this choice. Naomi is a good example, with her power to move an area during the team phase. Amelia is another – for instance, if Amelia is in an area with demons, a badly wounded hero could move into the same area, and attack. Then, on Amelia’s turn, she can attack, then leave the area, dragging the injured person along with her special ability. Moose Kowalski, on the other hand, has an ability that requires him to move before he attacks. So if he wants that ability, he needs to figure out what to do the turn before so he can set it up.
It takes some planning to get the most out this turn structure, but that’s part of what makes Planet Apocalypse a strategy game, not a dice fest.
How Amelia works
Except for her starting 0 cost gift (which is “no effect”), all of her gifts heal every other player for 1 point. Of course sometimes players are full health so they don’t appreciate it, but it’s there. She also gets to add 1d6 to her attack, and also boost an attack die by 1 step, so by game end, if she gets no attack-enhancing gifts, she’ll have 2d8 or 1d10+1d6 for her attack. Her final gift is kind of weak – all it does is add +1 health to the other heroes, but it’s really just there in case she needs a little something extra near the game end. As I’ve explained elsewhere, it’s quite common for a PA hero to not earn all 6 gifts before the game ends.
In play, she is an eggshell with a hammer. She can’t use troopers to block damage – at least not effectively – and her meagre toughness means she is quite vulnerable when alone. At least she can haul someone along with her. Also, because of her abilities and tendency to hop from place to place to heal stun, fire, etc. she is frequently on the front lines, so you have to watch to see she doesn’t take too much damage.
She needs to rely heavily on first aid to keep her fit. It’s a good thing her attack is good, because she usually has a fair supply of courage to use for this purpose. Also, thanks to the fact that her gifts heal the other heroes, they are generally willing to let her use the courage pool to buy them, which is nice. So she is rarely gift-starved (unlike poor Penrod, for instance).
Penrod Wallenstein
Penrod Wallenstein is inspired by one of my heroes, Mr. T! Though I despised “The A Team” show I loved Mr. T, and still do. A few years back, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Lymphoma, which he managed to survive via chemotherapy and treatment. His comment when asked about it was, “For four years, fools went unpitied.” Now THAT’S a hero.
Anyway. Penrod is supposed to represent a fighter. Rugged, brave, and unyielding.
He is amazing at first, with 1d10 attack, toughness 3, and a health of 7. His luck is only 2, but you can’t have everything. Even his weakness isn’t so bad. He only earns courage equal to the circle of the highest-rank demon he kills in an attack. Of course if all he kills is a Larva, he gets 0 courage. If he kills a first circle demon, he gets 1 courage. But, if he kills 2 or more first circle demons, he still only gets 1 courage. On the other hand, if he manages to kill a second or third circle demon, he gets 2 or 3 courage, respectively, and with his 1d10 starting attack, it’s not that hard to pull off.
Penrod’s abilities are of course also quite solid. His starting ability is Inspirational, which lets him roll 1d6 when he recruits (instead of a mere 1d4), so he always has a good supply of troopers, and he can sometimes (1/3 of the time) roll high enough to recruit a Special Forces without spending courage. This last is nice because Penrod, thanks to his weakness, doesn’t really accumulate courage at a fast pace.
His other abilities are Just A Distraction, which lets him gain courage when stunned, on fire, or infected with Pestilence. Of course not every map has these problems, so this ability can be skipped in the tech tree. His other ability is Brawler, which lets him spend 1 health to get a second Attack each turn. Since his attack is so excellent, this is a fabulous ability. Too bad it’s extremely expensive to acquire
How Penrod works
He has just about the worst tech tree for gifts of any player – in fact, he is wholly front-loaded in terms of abilities. Three of his “gifts” are listed as No Effect, meaning all he gets from them is the gift card! One does add 1d6 to his attack, and the other two are for his abilities. So that’s pretty weak. This gives him a kind of double-whammy, because when players are looking over gifts to take, they often decide to let someone besides Penrod take the gift, because Penrod may not have that extra little bump up. So he gets less courage in the first place, has weaker gift rewards, and socially other players tend to skip him in gaining gifts. It all adds up. At least with a strong personality you can minimize the social issue, and Penrod’s strength is so great it may make up for his slow advancement.
Penrod isn’t really for new players, because he can give them a wrong idea of how the game works. They will feel like they’re not making progress. And they’re not, but this is all part of the way Penrod works. He is still a great warrior & boost to the party.
What’s that thing he’s holding in his figure?
It’s a pole chainsaw. A real item, used (of course) for working on trees). But what a fabulous spear it would make for slicing up demons!
