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How many scenarios do y’all’s playthroughs of Scarlet Keys end up actually being?
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Sep 25, 2023 10:45
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6 or 7 seems to be the consensus without actively planning it out prior and purposefully losing scenarios so you have more time or whatever. My initial playthrough was 6.
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Sep 25, 2023 11:03
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I believe my first one was 7.
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Sep 26, 2023 05:51
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I feel like I’ve asked this before, but how do people mark their selections on the custom cards? Just use a pencil and erase when done?
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Sep 26, 2023 23:21
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Anonymous Robot posted:I feel like I’ve asked this before, but how do people mark their selections on the custom cards? Just use a pencil and erase when done? Spare sleeve and Sharpie. Inner sleeves work really good for this, but I wouldn't go buy a pack just for that. I have extras from Magic decks.
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Sep 26, 2023 23:29
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LifeLynx posted:Spare sleeve and Sharpie. Inner sleeves work really good for this, but I wouldn't go buy a pack just for that. I have extras from Magic decks. Yep, I just use a sleeve and a fine point sharpie. If you care about the sleeve it's easy enough to wash off after.
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Sep 26, 2023 23:36
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We sleeve everything anyway, then for the custom cards we use a strip of scotch tape on the sleeve (over the check boxes) and just mark on that with a sharpie
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Sep 27, 2023 00:47
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I just would’ve figured sharpie would wipe off a sleeve.
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Sep 27, 2023 01:43
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I've been amusing myself in an extremely sad and nerdy way by imagining the funniest thing to throw at an enemy using Act of Desperation. I have used it in a couple of decks now to throw away big weapons when they're empty, which is kind of the use implied by the card art. Very easy to imagine your character firing until they hear a click and then tossing it at a fish monster. But you could also conceivably defeat an eldritch abomination by tossing, say, a magnifying glass at them. A keyring. Your dream diary. A rolled up newspaper. Jim's trumpet. It's very hard to beat juggling chainsaws with it as Yorick, though.
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Sep 27, 2023 13:31
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Strange Solution perhaps? Oops. Didn't see the hand slot requirement Xlorp fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Sep 27, 2023 |
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Sep 27, 2023 16:18
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A melee weapon is amusing in that it would work thematically to throw a machete, hammer or sickle at someone, but also has strong "why the gently caress would you even do that?" mechanical energy. Knife works especially well for this, though don't sleep on Boxing Gloves. In the same vein, The Gold Pocket Watch. Talisman of Protection in that it's technically doing its job and living up to its name. "Lucky" Penny for similar reasons. Protective Gear might be the weirdest one thematically. And ofcourse there's the death by papercuts from Press Pass, Occult Scraps, Scroll of Prophecies or Hemispheric Map.
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Sep 27, 2023 16:58
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Orange Devil posted:A melee weapon is amusing in that it would work thematically to throw a machete, hammer or sickle at someone, but also has strong "why the gently caress would you even do that?" mechanical energy. Knife works especially well for this, though don't sleep on Boxing Gloves. The item has to take up at least one hand slot, so sadly flinging medallions and badges like shuriken is off the table. I think this search has all of the one-hand items that would qualify (the 2-hands all seem to be weapons). God there are a lot of books in this game. Dowsing Rod would be a funny thing to kill someone with. Plus it's a bonus way to get rid of doom! That could work for Blessed Chalice and Ceremonial Sickle too I guess, though you would probably want better ways of managing doom than hoping there's something around to throw your occult pots and pans at. Other funny things from that list to potentially kill someone with: A pocket telescope, a fan, some ritual candles.
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Sep 27, 2023 17:19
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There are a lot of fun thematic things to kill an inhuman creature with. Damning testimony, a compass or a newspaper for an infovore. A microscope or magnifying glass for the blob that ate everything. Silas’s net or harpoon for aquatic life. Medical texts or a shovel for zombies.
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Sep 27, 2023 18:18
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Orange Devil posted:A melee weapon is amusing in that it would work thematically to throw a machete, hammer or sickle at someone, but also has strong "why the gently caress would you even do that?" mechanical energy. Knife works especially well for this, though don't sleep on Boxing Gloves. Boxing Gloves strong contender for funniest answer. Boxing gloves on a spring, Looney Tunes style.
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Sep 27, 2023 19:28
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A friend of mine is fond of using Act of Desperation to throw his lightsaber (enchanted blade) so he can pretend to be darth vader.
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Sep 27, 2023 20:19
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I've yet to get a chance to try it, but I'm very amused by the idea of Yorick using AoD for a percussive reload of the Old Shotgun.
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Sep 27, 2023 21:15
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I think killing a eldritch abomination by slamming them over the head with the Necronomicon would be particularly satisfying.
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Sep 28, 2023 03:56
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AoD is kind of sad to use with Old Shotgun because you get no boost to fist or resources, but it's very good to use with a different more expensive weapon to retrieve old shotgun, because playing old shotgun from the graveyard while a fight event is active allows it to come in play with the "while an event" part of the card triggers
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Sep 28, 2023 06:38
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Cicadalek posted:The item has to take up at least one hand slot, so sadly flinging medallions and badges like shuriken is off the table. I think this search has all of the one-hand items that would qualify (the 2-hands all seem to be weapons). God there are a lot of books in this game. Ah gently caress I thought it just needed to be an Item. This is what I get for not reading the card carefully again first.
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Sep 28, 2023 15:10
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What happens if you yeet Flute of the Outer Gods?
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Sep 28, 2023 16:28
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The Scarlet Keys is the eighth campaign expansion for Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and this is my campaign report and review. There is a massive amount of content in TSK so I'll cut down on the preamble this time to get straight into it. I tend to binge AH a few times a year, and I enjoy developing a pair of decks for two-handed solo play, on Hard. I spend a lot of time iterating on the level zero decks, generally tailoring them for the first scenario or two, then I do an ironman run through the entire campaign with the goal of achieving the "true" ending and accumulating as much XP as I can along the way. I've done a few reports like this (eg. my Edge of the Earth run) and they all consist of multiple posts. This one is no exception, and this first post will introduce the two investigators I chose for this campaign along with their decks. The next seven posts will contain the campaign report itself, then in the final post I'll go over what worked and what didn't with regards to my deckbuilding, and I'll also talk about alternative deck ideas I pursued for each investigator before giving my thoughts on the campaign itself. Before I get to the decks I'll briefly go over the new game mechanics in this campaign. From this point on, I'll be discussing a lot of things in great detail so if you don't want to be spoiled about anything to do with TSK then stop reading now! ----- The Scarlet Keys is the game's first non-linear campaign, which means that after a mandatory prologue scenario you can choose the order in which you do all of the other scenarios in the game (or you can skip some or all of them) except for the final scenario, which is also mandatory. The constraining factor on the number of scenarios you can include in any one campaign is the time mechanic, which interacts with the world map included in the box.  Each of the nodes on the map represents an "encounter", which may or may not include a scenario (flip to the corresponding page number in the campaign guide to resolve the encounter). Traveling along a path to a node generally costs one unit of time, but certain encounters or scenario resolutions will cost additional time. You can choose to play the final scenario from the 15 time mark onwards and at 35 time you're forced to play it. A lot of encounters and scenarios are time-sensitive too, and visiting them earlier rather than later is generally the best idea. One effect of having a variable number of scenarios is that most of them only give around 5-6XP, so you can end up with less overall XP than in most other campaigns depending upon how many scenarios you choose to do. And that, in turn, can impact the viability of certain investigators and/or classes that generally need more XP to get going. It is actually possible to fit all ten scenarios into a campaign, but doing so is more of an academic exercise than an interesting play experience. This campaign also has special rules for integrating the standalone scenarios, and it makes them feel a bit more rewarding (instead of costing an amount of XP to embark upon a standalone you spend that much additional time to travel to its map location).  And here's one of the eponymous Keys. There are eleven in total and you acquire them mostly from scenario resolutions (a few map encounters reward them too). If you possess one or more Keys you put them into play during the setup of each scenario, stable side up. Then, during play, as a free trigger ability you can shift the key, resolving its effect and flipping it to its unstable side. You can only shift a key once per round, but the conditions for flipping them from unstable back to stable have been deliberately ruled to be very lenient (more on this in the campaign report). Also, sometimes an enemy will spawn with a Key attached, in which case it enters play in its unstable state and cannot be flipped to stable.  The last new gameplay mechanic (and the most relevant one for deck building purposes) is the Concealed keyword. A lot of enemies in this campaign have a double-sided minicard associated with them, and when you draw the enemy you spawn it in a new game area called "the shadows" rather than at its location. You then take its minicard and the number of specified decoy minicards, shuffle them together, and place them facedown as evenly as possible at each location, starting with the locations closest to you. If there was already one or more minicards at a location, you shuffle them and place them facedown again. Enemies in the shadows are considered to be in play and can qualify for effects that look for the "nearest enemy" but they are not at any location and they can't take damage or be targeted by player card effects. Investigators can expose a minicard by investigating its location, attacking or evading it as though it were an enemy (using its location's shroud value) or using a card effect which automatically discovers a clue, or deals damage to or evades an enemy. In each case, the expose effect replaces the standard effect of the action you took, so you don't discover any clues or damage any enemies at your location (even if the action affects multiple targets). When you expose a concealed minicard you flip it over, and if it's a decoy you set it aside. If it's an enemy though, you move that enemy from the shadows to its location and then set its minicard aside, and if there are no enemies left in the shadows you set aside all remaining minicards because it means they're all decoys. They've published a lot of clarifications about how Concealed works because the campaign guide doesn't include a great amount of detail, but I won't get any deeper into it here. The main takeaway for now is that dealing with this mechanic can be action-intensive, so fast or free trigger abilities and/or card effects which deal damage or discover clues gain more value. And the very final thing I'll mention here is that these decks were built according to the Taboo List from the 2.0 FAQ, and the campaign was played with the rules from that FAQ as well. As in my previous reports, when I mention a specific rule I'll give it an aside and a bold Rules Sidebar indicator, for clarity. ============== The Scarlet Keys ============== Part One: The Investigators Our story begins in Arkham, where a spate of disappearances has swept the city. Over the course of several months, cars, street lamps, cats, dogs, and eventually people began disappearing, seemingly at random. But then something strange happened: it seemed like all the objects and people that went missing had been completely erased from existence. Nobody remembered their possessions or their friends or loved ones ever having existed at all. Nobody, that is, except us. Soon after we began looking into the matter we were contacted out of the blue by one Li Flint, who sent us an invitation to meet him at Arkham's new movie theatre. We accepted, and the meeting turned out to be a clandestine affair, with him sitting in front of us and not turning around to speak. He slipped us a package which contained photos and documentation about missing persons cases much like the ones we had begun to investigate ourselves, and it turns out these disappearances are happening not just in Arkham, but all over the world. He introduced himself as Inspector Li Flint, with the ICPC, and he asked us to work together and to join him in London in a few days time to track down a person of interest: a man wearing a sharp suit and distinctive red gloves. We agreed to work together, but now we have a decision to make. We can choose to trust him fully and accept his help in getting to London (removing one Elder Thing token from the bag and adding one Tablet token) or we can reject his offer and make our own way there (vice versa with the tokens). Throughout the campaign there will be more opportunities like this to add or remove ET and Tablet tokens, depending upon whether we choose to be trusting or not, and if we reach the point where there is already four of one token in the bag and we try to add another, we'll instead gain 1XP. So it pays to stick to your convictions. We'll follow the path of trust (mostly) which in this case means our opening token bag has two Tablets and zero ETs. Here's what it looks like:  It's a pretty typical Hard token bag, with +4 being the number we need to reach on every test to have a good chance of passing. For each investigator, I'll do a mini-review of their stats, abilities, and deck building rules, then I'll talk about all of the cards in their deck before finally showing the full list (you can, of course, scroll down if you want to check it out first). Our lead investigator is Joe Diamond, and I chose him because I wanted to try something a bit different this time. Ever since I started playing two-handed solo I've always built one deck to have a heavy focus on fighting and the other on clue gathering (or cluevering), with the fighter generally running interference for the cluever during play. This time around I decided to mix it up by running two investigators who could more easily fit into the all-rounder or flex role, with each of their decks having a more even mix of combat and investigation cards. At least, that was the goal. The result... well, old habits die hard. I ended up skewing Joe's deck much further towards cluevering than originally planned, though it still had a few more fighting cards than I'd ever put into a yellow deck. I tried to make good use of his Combat stat but it always felt like the deck was being stretched too thin, so I concluded that focusing on Intellect was the only viable option for him, at least for a two player game. But then a funny thing happened along the way to Tunguska. I settled on my route fairly early on and I spent a heap of time replaying each scenario and iterating on the level zero decks and upgrade choices, as I always do, and I felt like I was about as prepared as I could be for the proper run. I'd even begun to write this section of the report, but there was one slight problem: I hadn't actually managed to beat the "Without a Trace" scenario, which is the one you need to finish to unlock the true ending. It turned out to be one of the most difficult scenarios in the whole run (low Willpower being a particular liability) and it eventually made me rethink my approach to the entire campaign up to that point. So I started testing out new cards and strategies and ideas, but success still eluded me. And then I thought to myself, hey, you know the Key from that scenario you peaced the gently caress out of on turn three of your Standard run because it had a huge boss fight, tonnes of small enemies, and a crazy amount of chip damage from the token bag? Yeah, that Key would be really useful here. And so I got to workshopping whether or not it would actually be feasible to do that scenario with my two chosen investigators, and it turned out that it was. More or less. But it required making some pretty substantial changes to their original decks such that in the end they did look a lot more like proper flex lists. And, for reasons I'll go into later, it made the most sense to do this scenario as early as possible. What this means for the campaign is that our first scenario after leaving London is going to take place in Marrakesh. And Joe Diamond is packing heat. Dead Heat.  Ok, that line doesn't make much sense. Moving on, one glance at Joe's stats is enough to reveal his strengths and weaknesses. His Willpower and Agility of two means he's going to be eating all the damage and horror from the encounter deck, so we'll have to plan for that, but his four in both Combat and Intellect means he's good at fighting and investigating. Not quite good enough for the Hard token bag (investigators with a base of five in one of those stats really shine) but we can work with it. One issue here though is that if we want to be able to both fight and investigate at +4 it's going to be very difficult to fit all the support we'd need to enable that into a single deck. Fortunately, one of the new TSK player cards comes in very handy for solving this problem, but that's an upgrade we'll grab after we leave London. Joe's deck building rules give him access to Seeker 0-5, Neutral 0-5, and Guardian 0-2 cards, and his deck size is 40. During the setup of each scenario you also need to create a "hunch deck" consisting of eleven Insight events taken from your deck, and it must include his weakness as one of them. Then, at the beginning of each investigation phase you reveal the top card of your hunch deck and you can play it at -2 cost. If you don't play it, it gets shuffled back into the deck at the end of the phase, so you essentially get to draw an extra card each turn from a curated selection (and each card you play goes to your regular discard pile). It's a powerful ability, and you'll want to play your hunch card every turn if you can to take advantage of the cost reduction, so it's best to include cards which aren't too situational. Thus, our starting hunch deck consists of two copies of each of these cards:  Scene of the Crime: Testless clue gathering is great, and playing it for free takes some of the sting out of using it to only grab one clue, though it's usually still a good use of the card to do that anyway. In this campaign we can also use it to expose a concealed card so it won't necessarily be wasted on a location without any clues. Working a Hunch: Fast, testless clue gathering is also great. I've sometimes wondered if this card is worth running at 3-4 player counts since there are so many more clues, but with two players it's very reasonable. And, as with Scene of the Crime, we can also use it to expose a concealed card. Preposterous Sketches: A Seeker staple. Having it in the hunch deck basically turns it into Preposterous Sketches (2). No Stone Unturned: A good card which nevertheless doesn't often make it into Seeker decks because the yellow card pool is overflowing with great cards. Here, the cost discount makes it an easy sell, along with the fact that it can be played no matter the board state. Shortcut: A very strong and versatile movement card. Just as one example of its usefulness, if you have Scene of the Crime available but your location doesn't have any clues, you can move to one that does and still meet the "first action of your turn" condition for playing that card. I wouldn't normally put Shortcut in the hunch deck because it's much better to have it available in hand, but after retrofitting this list for the second scenario it was the least worst option to put here. It will return to the main deck after that scenario. And that covers the hunch deck, which just leaves his Elder Sign ability. It allows you to move an Insight event from your discard pile to the hunch deck, including ones that didn't start there. You won't always want to add a card to the hunch deck because certain cards are more situational than others (and, for some cards, their usefulness diminishes as the game progresses) and sometimes you won't want to increase the size of the deck if you haven't yet seen a particular card you've been angling for; the fact that it puts the card on the bottom of the deck helps in that regard, but there is still always the chance that you won't be able to play the hunch card each turn so you could be forced to shuffle the deck. From a gameplay perspective it's not a particularly impactful ability, but from a design perspective it's great because it makes you think about what you're doing. Next up is Joe's two signature cards.  Detective's Colt 1911s: Joe's guns are pretty bad. Stat-wise, they're almost identical to the most vanilla weapon in the game, the .45 Automatic, except they take up an extra hand slot. The ability to hold onto a couple of Tools is relevant, since Magnifying Glass is a common include for him, but not being able to use other one-handed items is a big drawback, and the ability to move a card back to your hunch deck is less useful than its Elder Sign incarnation because it's conditional. And that condition (defeating an enemy) is not something you will be doing a lot of, at least on Hard, because the guns will need a fair amount of support to accomplish anything much past the early scenarios of a campaign. It's true that Joe doesn't have many options when it comes to weapons since Guardian 0-2 is pretty light on good ones, but he does have full access to the Seeker arsenal of deadly books and research-based artillery. And while some of that kit isn't a great fit for him, running it does allow you to maintain a strong focus on cluevering while still having some powerful offensive options. Unsolved Case: As far as investigator weaknesses go this would have to be one of the lightest in the game. Its main impact is tempo loss since you have to spend one action and two resources to play it (and possibly more actions to retrieve your clue, especially if it hits a VP location). Note that you can play it while you don't have any clues because its templating doesn't use the word "then," so removing itself from the game isn't dependent upon a clue being placed on a location. One minor advantage of this weakness being in the hunch deck is that it means Joe's main deck is one card smaller, which makes his regular draws very slightly better. And if we were playing a big hand archetype which cycles the deck more often it would be one less speed bump to take into account. Another minor archetype-based advantage is that it has some synergy with the new clue-dropping cards from TSK, Research Notes and Press Pass, though you do need to be at the location where you drop the clue in order to use them.  In the Thick of It: This card is pretty much a staple in all of my decks because using experience to buy more powerful cards is one of the most fun things you can do in this game. Trauma is less fun, but two for three XP is a good value proposition. In this case we'll take two physical trauma because Joe has more HP than SP and he'll be taking at least one mental trauma during the campaign. We'll use the 3XP to purchase Charisma because Joe's ally slots are going to be our primary means of boosting his Intellect to a useful level, and they'll also help soak damage and horror from the encounter deck.  Dr. Milan Christopher: The entomology professor has been the foundation of Seeker economies since 2016. Without the taboo "once per turn" restriction on his ability he's busted as hell, and with it he's merely extremely good. I think it's mostly a good thing that, seven years later, a lot of core set cards still see regular play. Alice Luxley: Historically, Alice Luxley hasn't seen much play outside Carolyn Fern decks, and in general she's not quite good enough for her cost. In TSK though, her ability provides some valuable action compression because you can use it to expose a concealed card. It combos well with Scene of the Crime and Working a Hunch too, and as mentioned earlier, her Intellect boost and decent stats are exactly what Joe needs.  Motivational Speech: This is a solid economy card which we'll always get full value from, and it can also be used by Joe's partner. It lets us play both of our allies on the first turn if we happen to have them in our opening hand and, being a Parley action, if we're engaged with an enemy it allows us to play them without taking an attack of opportunity. Crack the Case: Rounding out our economic package, Crack the Case provides a variable amount of resources generally sometime after the first few turns. This card is definitely not an auto-include but it makes sense here because with two investigators in the game most locations have a low number of clues and both investigators can gather them. We can also plan to score big off a high shroud location (perhaps using our testless discover effects) which is a useful option to have because Joe has some expensive cards that we may want to play in the mid to late game, like a second copy of one of his allies, or possibly a...  Dynamite Blast: Thematically, this is one of my favourite cards in the game but I will admit it's often hard to justify using the level zero version. This is one of the first cards I added when I did the major retrofit for the second scenario, but I'll go over the reasons why it's good there when we get to the campaign report. For now I'll just mention that this card is good in the first scenario too because there is a 5HP victory point enemy we want to kill, and we can also use it to advance the final act instead of performing a test. I actually wanted to have a second copy for the second scenario but I couldn't find a way to fit it in alongside one of the upgrades we'll be taking. Yes, two copies of Dynamite Blast would be fairly cost prohibitive, but we do have a trick up our sleeves to help pay for it. Or should I say a favour... At this point I'll mention that the first scenario is a pretty comfortable ride, so we can afford to have a number of combat cards which aren't strictly optimal for Joe to be running here. There aren't many enemies in the deck and Joe's partner is more than capable of handling them, which was one of the reasons the original version of the deck was more geared towards cluevering.  Enchanted Blade: This is the best level zero weapon available to Joe. I did consider the Machete now that it's back to being a regular level zero card in the 2.0 Taboo List, but the extra +1 Combat on the Blade is crucial on Hard. "I've got a plan!": I really like this card but it's usually too situational to take because of the variable number of clues you'll be holding over the course of a scenario, and it also requires some serious boosting to be able to pass the test consistently on Hard. In the second scenario there is a particular situation that suits this card perfectly (an abundance of clues on the map and a boss that spawns in a predictable location) and Joe has enough passive Intellect boosts and cards to commit to virtually guarantee a four damage hit.  Practice Makes Perfect: The full Practiced package was the other major change to the original list alongside the combat cards. We were, of course, already running Perception and Deduction, but the addition of Vicious Blow raised the number of PMP targets to six, which is about the minimum to justify running it. Note that you can play PMP in the player window either before or after you commit a card from your hand. Take the Initiative: This slot was originally Inquiring Mind but I swapped it to maintain the minimum number of targets for PMP after the second scenario because we'll be dropping Vicious Blow. Take the Initiative is also slightly better than IM in the Mythos Phase, where its main use is to provide some resilience against Willpower and Agility treacheries that deal a variable amount of damage or horror, though it's usually pretty risky to play PMP for it in that situation because it's the only eligible card in the deck for those tests. I like playing with Take the Initiative because it's strong enough to make you want to plan your turn around it and, in the same way that you can see Joe's hunch card before you choose which investigator will take the first turn each round, simply having it in your hand will often determine the order of events for the entire phase. It's an interesting bit of mental exercise without being overly taxing.  Logical Reasoning: The second scenario uses the Striking Fear encounter set, which contains two of the game's nastiest Terror treacheries. This card is also good for its horror heal, and it surprised me how many times I removed it over the course of the campaign and then subsequently returned it to the deck after more testing.  Eureka!: This card is a great example of how the Seeker pool is overflowing with very strong cards. It feels like a staple, at least in the sense that I always find it difficult to justify taking something other than it. A search and draw effect that doesn't take an action is hard to pass up.  Magnifying Glass: Speaking of cards that are hard to pass up, Magnifying Glass is cheap and fast and it makes your investigator unconditionally better at their primary role. It's another Core Set mainstay, and pretty much the only point of contention over whether to take it or not is that it uses a hand slot.  Stand Together: One copy of this was added to the deck when I dropped the second copy of Dynamite Blast since, as mentioned, I couldn't find a way to take it into the second scenario. Stand Together felt like the most useful option to round out the deck, since both Joe and his partner want to play some expensive cards in the early rounds.  Drawing the Sign: This is the basic weakness Joe pulled, and it's not a terrible one but it will definitely cause him to discard some cards over the course of the campaign. It's particularly bad if you draw it during the upkeep phase, but at other times it only requires immediate removal if you are actually going to discard some important cards (sometimes you can get by for a while with a maximum hand size of three). Joe's partner will probably end up discarding it most of the time too, since, on average, Joe's actions are generally more valuable than theirs. That covers every card in Joe's deck. Here's the full list: Joe Diamond in The Scarlet Keys (Hard) - 3XP Assets 2 x Magnifying Glass (Core Set) 2 x Dr. Milan Christopher (Core Set) 1 x Charisma (The Essex County Express) 1 x Detective's Colt 1911s(The Circle Undone) 2 x Enchanted Blade (The Secret Name) 2 x Alice Luxley (The Wages of Sin) 1 x In the Thick of It (Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion) Events 1 x Dynamite Blast (Core Set) 2 x Working a Hunch (Core Set) 2 x Shortcut (The Dunwich Legacy) 2 x "I've got a plan!" (The Miskatonic Museum) 2 x Preposterous Sketches (Blood on the Altar) 2 x No Stone Unturned (The Path to Carcosa) 2 x Logical Reasoning (A Phantom of Truth) 2 x Scene of the Crime (Threads of Fate) 1 x Unsolved Case (The Circle Undone) 2 x Crack the Case (The Secret Name) 2 x Practice Makes Perfect (Dark Side of the Moon) 2 x Motivational Speech (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) 1 x Stand Together (The Essex County Express) Skills 2 x Vicious Blow (Core Set) 2 x Deduction (Core Set) 2 x Perception (Core Set) 2 x Eureka! (The Pallid Mask) 2 x Take the Initiative (The Boundary Beyond) Treachery 1 x Drawing the Sign (The Path to Carcosa) That wraps it up for Joe Diamond's deck list and card commentary, which means it's time to introduce his partner, Kymani Jones!  Kymani is one of the new investigators included in The Scarlet Keys, and I always like taking an investigator through their associated campaign because the designers often lean towards ensuring they're a good fit. In this case, it feels like the non-elite enemies in TSK have generally lower HP than in other campaigns, which is probably due to all the Concealed ones requiring more actions to deal with than regular enemies. This makes Kymani's ability easier to use, and their affinity for evasion also comes in handy for dealing with the Concealed mechanic in general. Taking a look at their stats, a three in Willpower is unusual for a Rogue. It's a noticeable advantage but in practice Kymani will still fail most Willpower treacheries, so we'll have to include some horror soak. A two in Intellect is only relevant with regards to their reaction ability and it's fine at that base level, while a Combat of two rules out any gun-based enemy management plan, but we wouldn't go down that path anyway because leveraging their reaction ability to dispose of enemies will be far more efficient. Having an Agility of five is excellent and we'll be focusing exclusively on this stat because Kymani will be spending most of their time searching for hidden enemies and/or bonking them on the head and dragging them into a nearby closet, which is how I imagine their ability is represented in narrative terms. And speaking of that ability, being able to discard a non-elite enemy without defeating it is a very rare effect in this game. Being able to do it repeatedly makes it a uniquely powerful ability which is also fun to use precisely because of the way it lets you bypass the core game mechanic of dealing damage. It feels like cheating, which is narratively on point for the character described as a professional thief, but all that power does come at a cost. Specifically, an action cost, as it will generally take at least two actions to deal with any eligible target (including those low-HP targets it might've only taken one action to deal with the conventional way). Still, this is an ability worth building a deck around, so that's exactly what we're going to do. Kymani's deck building rules give them access to Rogue 0-5, Neutral 0-5, and Tool 0-4 cards, and their deck size is 30. I wasn't able to find any non-Rogue tools worth using so I built a pure green deck, but I suspect Riot Whistle is a good choice at higher player counts. Kymani also starts with five bonus XP, which I assume is due to the fact that their ability, for all its strength, is quite narrowly focused, and their stat line doesn't offer much support for any particular role. Regarding their Elder Sign ability, I'll briefly quote the rules for automatic success and failure: Rules Sidebar: If a skill test automatically fails, the investigator's total skill value for that test is considered zero. If a skill test automatically succeeds, the total difficulty of that test is considered zero. This means that if you happen to pull an Elder Sign token while using their reaction ability you're almost guaranteed to meet the "succeed by" threshold required to discard the enemy (without any external skill bonuses it lets you dumpster a 7HP enemy). The last thing I'll mention about their ability is that discarding an enemy does not count as defeating it, so cards or game effects which look for an enemy being defeated cannot be played or triggered in response. This often works to your advantage because there are always a few enemies in every campaign that have nasty triggered effects upon taking damage or being defeated, but you also can't put VP enemies into the victory display without defeating them so there is a downside. And now it's time for some more card commentary. The core of this deck revolves around the Rogue subtheme of granting and benefiting from extra actions because it felt like a good fit for both Kymani and the campaign. Most of the scenarios here have a tight clock, and building around Kymani's ability tends to favour an asset-heavy approach, so we can frequently make good use of any extra actions we get. As before, I'll pull out every card from the deck, starting with Kymani's signature cards.  Grappling Hook: I went back and forth a lot trying to decide if this is a good card, and I eventually settled on yes, it is good. The main issue with it is not really anything to do with the card itself but rather that Kymani generally wants to play other assets before this one so you simply can't afford it a lot of the time. But when it does make it onto the table it opens up new lines of play (avoiding attacks of opportunity is always a good option to have) and simply using it to move and investigate using your Agility is often useful. You won't always be able to take advantage of its action compression potential (performing three actions for the price of two) but in scenarios with Concealed cards or aloof enemies there are enough targets to give it a slight bump in your asset priority list. Regarding the way in which the Grappling Hook grants its actions, here's the relevant entry from the FAQ: Rules Sidebar: If an effect allows an investigator to "take" an action, they effectively gain an action and then immediately spend it in order to take the action in question. What this means is that you must immediately take two or three actions one after another, and there is no player window between those actions so you can't play any fast cards or free triggered abilities (reaction abilities can still be triggered if their conditions are met). You can play fast cards or free triggered abilities during the player window created when you perform a test during one of those actions, but if you try to initiate another test during that window the second test gets postponed as per the rule on nested skill tests: Rules Sidebar: A skill test cannot initiate during another skill test. If, during the resolution of a skill test, another skill test would initiate, instead the second skill test does not initiate until the first skill test has finished resolving. If the first skill test was part of an action, the second skill test does not initiate until that action has finished resolving.  Agent Fletcher: I love the narrative/mechanical intersection here, where Kymani gives their enemies the slip by outsmarting them (adding their Intellect value to their evasion attempt) but it doesn't work on Agent Fletcher because he knows all their tricks. As an enemy, this is actually a pretty bad weakness for a Rogue to have because they love drawing multiple cards each turn and, unlike a lot of other weaknesses, an enemy has to be handled immediately. It's not too hard to evade Fletcher but it's quite difficult to discard him using Kymani's ability without committing multiple cards, so while he's in your deck you'll generally have to be conservative with your draw actions until you have enough cards in hand or assets on the table to be able to deal with him efficiently. Of course, getting into that position will probably involve drawing cards, but then it's nothing if not perfectly thematic for your nemesis to show up at the worst possible moment.  In the Thick of It: We'll take two physical trauma here because, as with Joe, Kymani has more HP than SP and they'll be taking at least one mental trauma during the campaign. Unlike Joe though, they won't be taking much damage from Agility treacheries. Stealth (3): It wouldn't surprise me to learn that this card served as the main inspiration for the design of Kymani's ability. It may as well be another signature card for them as it neatly removes the action cost from the second evade required to discard an enemy, and it also makes it a lot easier to meet the necessary oversuccess threshold. This card now has a permanent home in Kymani decks (it was hardly ever played beforehand) and it turns them into a very efficient enemy handler. Also, Stealth (3) can be used to expose a concealed card, but you don't get the -2 modifier due to the following email ruling on Improvised Weapon: Rules Sidebar: The difficulty to successfully attack a concealed mini-card is equal to the shroud value of its location. This value cannot be modified by Improvised Weapon, because IW specifically reduces an enemy's "fight" value.  Charon's Obol: It's no coincidence that Rogues and Mystics are the only two classes that have cards which grant bonus XP; they need more than the others to be as effective at any particular role. This campaign is safe enough to not have to worry about the Obol's fine print, at least up until "Without a Trace." But I'm sure I'll have worked that one out by the time we get there... The Moon • XVIII: Kymani can use their Agility for pretty much everything and their ability relies on oversuccess. This card provides a solid boost to their overall effectiveness. Leo De Luca (1): One of the most important lessons I learned when I began playing this game is that extra actions aren't inherently useful—they're only useful if you can do something meaningful with them. Every Rogue who takes Leo De Luca can use his extra action to draw a card, or move, or gain one resource, but, absent any specific context, those actions are almost by definition low impact and don't justify his high cost. Very few Rogues can perform skill tests with a consistently high chance of success to justify having extra opportunities to do so every turn, and with their base of five in Agility and a card pool that lets them use it for almost anything, Kymani is one of them. TSK presents more targets for those skill tests with its Concealed mechanic and a few of its scenarios require a lot of back and forth movement, which is why I made the earlier point about extra actions just being generally more valuable here. Also, while every Rogue needs to build a rig (to borrow an old Netrunner term), Kymani relies more heavily than most of them on having certain key assets in play, so having more actions for setup is very useful. This is also one of the reasons we're starting with the upgraded Leo De Luca; the cheaper cost makes it easier to afford both Leo and our other important assets, and since Leo is our highest priority mulligan and search target we'll be getting value from that one XP (technically two XP since there are two copies) every game. Another reason for starting with the upgraded version is that we can play it immediately without having to waste an action gaining resources, so Kymani can hit the ground running and start performing skill tests (often to expose Concealed cards) right away. I mentioned earlier that I'd be building a deck around Kymani's ability, but it would be more accurate to say the deck is built around Leo De Luca. This level zero version of the deck is not fully representative of that (because of course it can't be) but as we gain more XP throughout the campaign we'll develop our capacity for taking and benefitting from extra actions.  Honed Instinct: Customizable cards are new in TSK (I left them out of the introduction) and each one comes with its own upgrade sheet. They start off as level zero cards but you can tick boxes on them by spending XP, at which point they become a higher level card equal to half the number of ticked boxes, rounded up, and they can also be purchased outright as upgraded cards and added to your deck following the usual rules. Honed Instinct provides extra actions virtually on-demand for Kymani due to its Killer Instinct upgrade, because as far as the game is concerned there's no difference between engaging an enemy and an enemy engaging you. Having one in hand also gives you a kind of insurance policy against Agent Fletcher showing up if you want to draw some cards and wouldn't otherwise have a way to deal with him. And to get extremely technical for just a moment, if its second condition is met ("succeed by three or more") Honed Instinct is played at ST.6 of a skill test's resolution, which means you gain an action during the resolution of the original test (before ST.7 where you actually apply the results of that test). Recall that there is a rule against taking nested tests, but there is in fact no rule against taking nested actions, so you could, for example, perform an investigate test and then move to a higher shroud location to grab a clue. Refine: The deck has one copy of this card and we'll try to use it during the first scenario to save one XP by purchasing the Killer Instinct upgrade (which takes effect immediately). If we miss this opportunity we'll have to spend an actual XP on it because we can't afford to take greedy cards like this into the second scenario.  Calculated Risk: And here's our first reward for performing extra actions. The card works perfectly well at +3 when used at the end of a regular turn, but at +4 or higher it gives you a lot of flexibility with regards to non-Agility tests, and of course it helps with our oversuccess effects. It's also great during the early stages of a campaign because there aren't a lot of ways to get large skill boosts without spending XP. Note that you can play Honed Instinct in response to a test where you use Calculated Risk and gain an action after your turn has ended, because Honed Instinct lets you take an action "as if" it were your turn.  Disguise: There are a few different options for asset-based evade effects but I won't go over them all here (I'm saving that for the deck debrief post at the end!) Suffice it to say, Disguise is the best choice if we only want to take one of them because its bonus of +2 is the minimum we can afford when considering the Hard token bag, and it also has an excellent secondary effect of delaying a non-Elite enemy. A lot of the time you will want to dispose of an enemy right away with a second evade but it's still very relevant for all sorts of situations that come up, such as beating up a HP-sponge VP enemy over multiple turns, or leaving an enemy alone because the game will end in a few turns anyway.  Lucky Cigarette Case: This is a very solid draw option for just about any Rogue, but Kymani has an advantage with their built-in oversuccess generator. Adding your Intellect to your evasion skill test result might not let you nail an enemy every time, but there's a good chance it will satisfy the condition for this card.  Pilfer: I mentioned in Joe's section that the first scenario is pretty comfortable, all things considered, but there is one brief moment of danger and it comes right at the very beginning. We need to clear four clues from our starting location within two turns otherwise the first agenda will advance and cost us one additional time on the world map. Consequently, two copies of Pilfer boosts our chances of being able to clear this location quickly. Intel Report: This card is here to help with that goal as well but, unlike Pilfer, it won't be replaced after the first scenario. Without going into detail about the second scenario I will just say that we really, really, really don't want to take any tests unless we absolutely have to. Kicking the Hornet's Nest: Our shopping list for the first scenario includes a VP enemy that gets shuffled into the encounter deck. This is kind of an odd card; part testless clue gathering, part resource generator, part... tutor an enemy. I don't think it's a good Kymani card but in this campaign it is pretty useful for VP-hunting.  Faustian Bargain: I really, really dislike how this card puts Curse tokens into the bag even though the rational part of my brain understands that being able to play your other cards is a really good way to win the game. As in real life, our failures tend to stick in our memory more vividly than our successes, so it feels like those Curse tokens have an outsize effect on the game when really they're not nearly as impactful as anything you could do with five extra resources. Sneak By: Decent action compression and economy (and good icons) but it will get replaced fairly early on in the campaign.  Backstab: This is an efficient way to deal with Agent Fletcher but its main purpose here is to help bolster our offensive options against VP and Elite enemies. Since it's fairly expensive in both resources and commits we're only taking one copy. Sneak Attack: Testless damage is very useful against those same enemies, especially in the second scenario where we'll also use it on regular enemies simply to avoid drawing a token. Hatchet Man: This is typically used to turn Sneak Attack into a three damage hit, but it also works well when you have a partner that can deal damage too, which is the case for the first few scenarios.  Panic: If Kymani draws this basic weakness in the early game it can seriously disrupt their setup with its "play" limit, but if they draw it in the mid to late game it shouldn't cause too many issues. Luckily for them, their free trigger ability to engage an exhausted enemy doesn't count as an "engage action" so Panic won't restrict its use, and not being able to use the resource action should only be a minor inconvenience most of the time. Joe can remove this treachery with Logical Reasoning, and one of the Keys we'll be chasing can do the same. And that covers everything in Kymani's deck, but the full list will have to go into the next post because this one has already hit the character limit. Kalko fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Kymani Jones - The Scarlet Keys (Hard) - 8XP Assets 1 x Stealth (3) (Return to the Path to Carcosa) 2 x Disguise (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) 2 x Leo De Luca (1) (Core Set) 1 x Charon's Obol (Dim Carcosa) 2 x Lucky Cigarette Case (Threads of Fate) 1 x The Moon • XVIII (The Circle Undone) 1 x In the Thick of It (Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion) 1 x Grappling Hook (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) Events 2 x Pilfer (Winifred Habbamock) 2 x Sneak By (Winifred Habbamock) 1 x Backstab (Core Set) 2 x Sneak Attack (Core Set) 2 x Intel Report (The Secret Name) 2 x Faustian Bargain (The Innsmouth Conspiracy) 2 x Honed Instinct (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) 2 x Kicking the Hornet's Nest (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) 1 x Refine (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) Skills 2 x Manual Dexterity (Core Set) 2 x Calculated Risk (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) 2 x Hatchet Man (The Boundary Beyond) Treachery 1 x Panic (Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion) Enemy 1 x Agent Fletcher (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion) ----- For each scenario in the campaign, I'll begin with a brief description of what it's all about (including some of the narrative bits) then I'll mention the strategy I came up with for it, followed by an account of how the run actually went. I'll include details like opening hands, memorable plays, terrible mistakes, that sort of thing. I'll then go over the resolution I achieved and the travel details for the next scenario, saving the upgrades section for last because some of the non-scenario encounters can reward XP so it's best to spend it at the last possible moment. Also, regarding the upgrade choices, I'll save some of the discussion regarding alternative options for the debrief post at the end just so I don't get too bogged down in the main report. ============== The Scarlet Keys ============== Part Two: The Campaign Scenario One: Riddles and Rain  The streets of London are full of cars, carriages, and people going about their business despite the late hour, the cold, and the rain. After proceeding to our rendezvous location we hang around for quite a while, but it seems like Inspector Flint isn't going to make an appearance. We're sure there's a perfectly non-sinister reason he's late, but still, it wouldn't hurt for us to have a bit of a look around ourselves, to see what we can find...  This scenario opens with a single location, the Rainy London Streets. We need four clues to advance the first act, at which point three new locations enter play.  The man from Flint's report, known only as the Red-Gloved Man, enters the shadows (placing a concealed card at each of these locations) and our new task is to expose him because we've caught wind of him observing us and we want to turn the tables by confronting him.  We catch up with him just as he ducks into an alley. Maintaining pursuit, we round the corner and then come to an abrupt stop as it appears he is no longer alone. Indistinct shapes surround him, but as we begin to cautiously approach he looks up and suddenly vanishes in a flash right before our eyes. His companions (if that's what they were) have disappeared as well, leaving only a large hole in the wall and a smear of ectoplasmic goo. We glance nervously around us at the fog which is still blanketing the city, wondering if any of those things could still be hanging around nearby.  We're not exactly sure where the RGM went but it seemed like he was heading east.  It's going to be difficult to simply stroll into the Tower of London uninvited, but perhaps there's another way in...  Taking the back door, we catch up with the RGM inside the tower, quietly following him without revealing ourselves. Eventually, he finds whatever it is he's looking for as he opens a secret passage and disappears inside. Hurrying along behind him, we discover that the passage contains a staircase leading down. Whatever his ultimate goal is, it surely lies at the bottom of this tower, along with our final confrontation.  Strategy: Our first priority is to collect all four clues from the Streets of London, so both investigators will mulligan for their clue-grabbing tools (and allies). The first agenda only has a doom threshold of two (and it will cost us time if it advances normally) but fortunately the token bag isn't too hard to deal with at this stage.  This is the same bag from the introduction except this time I've added the Skull value of -4 for when you're holding two or more clues. When each of the first three acts advance, it automatically advances the current agenda, and each time the agenda advances any doom on it gets transferred to the new agenda. The second agenda only has a doom threshold of four (and it will also cost us time if it advances normally) so fast cluevering is the name of the game during these opening turns. When the first three set-aside locations enter play Joe will head to Big Ben because it has a shroud of four, which he's better equipped to deal with than Kymani (and the Skull token will be at -2 again). His priority is to grab both clues so that we can claim the VP, but if he can expose the concealed card here with Alice Luxley or one of his testless clue discovering effects then he'll do that too. Kymani will head to Kensington Gardens and expose the concealed card with an evade action. It's unlikely they'll be able to use Pilfer or Intel Report to grab the clues (due to a shortage of resources) but it did occasionally happen during testing. Either way, if the card turns out to not be the RGM then Kymani will proceed to Westminster Abbey to expose that card, then if the one at Big Ben is still there they'll take care of that too, and if there are still clues on the Gardens after Joe finishes with Big Ben then he'll move there to grab them. When the second act advances, the set-aside enemies get added to the encounter deck, but since we don't have to worry about losing time anymore we can relax for a few turns while we prepare for the next stage. The plan is for Joe to pass the Intellect-5 test on the Tower Bridge, which puts the Traitor's Gate location into play, then Kymani will pass the Agility-5 test to reveal the Tower of London without us having to spend four clues. We need six to advance to the final act and we'll already have four from the two VP locations we cleared, so we only need to grab two more from one of the remaining locations. Ideally, before we head into that final act, Kymani will have played their single copy of Refine to upgrade Honed Instinct, and we'll also have found and dealt with this guy:  We have no shortage of firepower for taking him down, and if he doesn't show up within a few turns of being added to the encounter deck we'll play Kicking the Hornet's Nest to hunt for him. The final agenda has a doom threshold of seven, and it generally doesn't take long to clear the Tower Prison of clues and expose and deal with the RGM using either the Parley action on the final act or a Dynamite Blast (along with a ping from Alice Luxley, which is all but guaranteed at this location). How it went: Joe's opening hand had Milan, Deduction, Motivational Speech, and 2 x Practice Makes Perfect, while Kymani's had Leo De Luca, Pilfer, and Faustian Bargain. We were off to a good start, and Joe was able to drop Milan and grab all four clues with his remaining two actions using Deduction and PMP (Perception), then Perception and PMP (Deduction) so we advanced Act One right away. Joe used Shortcut to send himself to Big Ben, then on Kymani's turn they played Leo and moved to the Abbey to play Sneak By, exposing a decoy. On the next turn, Kymani discovered the RGM at Kensington Gardens, which advanced Act Two, so we were no longer in danger of losing any time. They also played Refine on this turn, since we were comfortably ahead of schedule and there wasn't much else for them to do right away. On turn five, Joe drew a Paracausal Entity while he was at The Tower Bridge, so he couldn't use Take the Initiative on the test to reveal the Traitor's Gate right away, which had been the plan. Kymani went first, playing Disguise and then using it to deal with the Entity. It's an annoying enemy for them to discard because it requires two engages so you lose two cards, but at this point they had already played Refine and I didn't care about any other cards in their deck. On Joe's turn I decided to do the location test anyway because he could still +5 it by committing three cards plus one from Kymani, and he succeeded by one to put the Traitor's Gate into play. On turn six (5/9 doom), Joe drew the Apocalyptic Presage, which was a nice surprise because we had plenty of time to deal with it. But then his hunch card turned out to be Unsolved Case, and if we didn't reveal the Traitor's Gate this turn he would have to place one of his clues on Big Ben. So, Kymani went first and engaged and evaded the Presage using Disguise, then they moved to TG to reveal it, spending their last action to gain one resource. On Joe's turn, he moved to TG, threw a stick of dynamite at the Presage, and then played UC to drop a clue at his feet. During upkeep, Agent Fletcher appeared. On turn seven (6/9 doom), Kymani drew a Locked Door, which had to be placed at Traitor's Gate.  Joe cracked it at +4 with TTI and Vicious Blow committed, then he grabbed one clue with Working a Hunch (pinging Fletcher with Alice Luxley) and another by investigating before using his last action to draw a card since we now had enough clues to advance the act. On Kymani's turn, they evaded Fletcher with Disguise then moved back to The Tower Bridge and finished off the Presage with Sneak Attack, then moved back to TG. On turn eight (7/9 doom), Joe played an Enchanted Blade and attacked Fletcher at +4 but pulled the +5 token, a rare failure. He tried again at +3 and succeeded, so now the board was clear and all we had to do was reveal the Tower of London using the action on TG. Kymani didn't have the resources (card commits) for it though, so they simply drew four cards, which was perfectly safe now that Agent Fletcher was gone. They would also need some resources to deal with the RGM at the final location, so restocking at this point was a good idea anyway. Two rounds later, both investigators were at the Tower Prison when the agenda advanced, which added a Coterie Agent to all the shadows within the prison.  Kymani got stuck into the five concealed cards here, and discovered the RGM with their second evade. They failed to evade him on their third action, but committing Calculated Reasoning on their final one succeeded. On Joe's turn, he played Scene of the Crime to grab two clues, then succeeded at two investigate tests to pick up the remaining two.  On turn eleven (1/7 doom), Joe performed two parley actions from the act (spending clues to reduce the difficulty) to add the RGM to the victory display, ending the scenario. Resolution 2. We advance slowly towards the Red-Gloved Man but no matter where we stand, we can't seem to find an angle where light shines on his face. He speaks with a grating, unearthly cadence, and he seems intrigued by our line of questioning. He indicates a crypt at the far end of the room and invites us to approach it. Lifting the lid of the coffin, we discover a very old corpse with a false ruby eye staring up at us. Pulling it out of the eye socket, we turn to ask the RGM about it, but he has vanished—this time without a trace. We hear the rumbling of the secret passageway upstairs, and moments later Inspector Flint bursts into the room, held at gunpoint by a woman dressed in a black suit and a wide-brimmed hat. Two other suits flank her as she moves into the crypt. She flashes a silver badge at us and demands to know where the Red-Gloved Man went. What have we gotten ourselves into? ----- 1VP (Apocalyptic Presage) + 1VP (The Red-Gloved Man) + 3VP (locations) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 5XP for Joe 7XP for Kymani Joe Diamond is the bearer of the Eye of Ravens. We haven't seen the last of the Red-Gloved Man. +1 Time. Time = 2.  The Eye of Ravens: There are a total of ten Keys in this campaign and I'm not going to create a tier list for them, but if I did this one would probably be somewhere around the middle. It's a useful ability, tests being something you do all the time, but in almost every scenario we will only use it once because the cost for shifting it back to its stable side far outweighs its benefit. One thing going for its unstable side is that it scales well at higher player counts, as most of the other Keys hit each player in the game when they shift back. Joe is taking this one mainly for the treachery resilience it provides, but if it helps him pass a key test (heh) then he'll use it for that instead. It's a good effect to have up your sleeve. ----- Interlude: The Foundation We try to explain that we're independent investigators working with Flint, though we leave out the part where the Red-Gloved Man disappeared into thin air. The woman studies us for a moment, then she appears to reach a decision and holsters her weapon. With the tension in the room subsiding, she explains that she has been tracking the RGM for a while now but he keeps giving her the slip. She introduces herself as Commissioner Taylor, of the Foundation, an international agency devoted to the discovery, research and containment of objects with paradimensional capability. After some further discussion we agree to work together, or rather, we agree to work for her as a new cell of the Foundation, with Flint acting as our go-between. Taylor explains that the RGM is part of an organization which calls itself the Red Coterie (because all of its members wear an item of red clothing) and in fact he might even be their leader. She says the Coterie is also hunting these paradimensional artifacts, which the Foundation refers to as Keys. We're not really sure what all this has to do with the disappearances we began investigating, and Flint clearly doesn't want to tell her about them. So, now we have a decision to make. We can tell Taylor the truth about the disappearances (removing one ET token from the bag and adding one Tablet token) or we can simply not mention them (vice versa with the tokens). Sorry, Flint, but she seems like she's on the level. The cell told the truth to Taylor. She finds our story interesting but reiterates that our main priority should be to track down as many Keys as we can to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Coterie. She provides us with travel papers that will allow us to go anywhere in the world, for free, and she also hands us a thick stack of documentation which contains dossiers for a number of targets the Foundation has identified as being of particular interest. The following morning, we flick through the Destination: Moscow. +1 Time (via Venice). Time = 3. The Foundation's base of operations in Moscow is headed by one of the suits who appeared with Taylor in London. We follow her down a cramped stairwell and into a set of passageways that lead to a set of double doors, behind which lies a white-tiled room flecked with grime. Strapped to an operating table in the centre is something that vaguely resembles a human; its features are blurred as if in constant motion, and it flails around on the table with its mouth widening and shrinking to a dark "O", always facing us. "So, what can the Foundation do for you?" "Uh, you know, if it's all the same to you, we'd like to just get the hell out of here. You got anything for that?" Joe Diamond adds one copy of Expedited Ticket to his deck.  We hightail it out of Moscow. Destination: Rome. +1 Time (via Venice). Time = 4. We spend a few days taking in the sights of Rome, culminating in a trip to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on Capitol Hill. Our guide takes us past several galleries containing nothing at all, and when we ask what used to be displayed there he laughs dismissively and declares that there never was anything in those rooms. Oh right, all that disappearing poo poo nobody knows about. We should probably get back to work. Each investigator may begin the next scenario they play with one additional resource in their resource pool. If we need to acquire more of these so-called Keys, then why don't we simply find someone who has one and take it from them? Someone like, say, Subject #11-B. aka. Amaranth. Destination: Marrakesh. +1 Time (via Monte Carlo). Time = 5. Upgrades Joe:  2 x Magnifying Glass -> 2 x Hyperphysical Shotcaster: It slices, it dices, it's the Service Weapon from Control! This is a very versatile upgrade that rewards you for going all-in on a single stat, and its Railshooter form will allow Joe to use his Intellect to fight, obviating the need to boost his Combat for the rest of the campaign. In the next scenario it will provide a solid boost to his firepower and, more importantly, its Realitycollapser form will allow us to deal with these three nasty bugbears:  Note that the treacheries you target don't have to be at your location. Realitycollapser will prove extremely useful in a few other scenarios in this campaign too. We're replacing the Magnifying Glasses here because they're the most expendable slot if we want to keep our offensive kit for the next scenario, and we can purchase them again later as upgrades in the form of Magnifying Glass (1).  1 x Stand Together -> 1 x Death - XIII: This is the next best passive Intellect boost for Joe after the two allies we're taking, and it will help him perform better at his primary task of gathering clues. And now with the Shotcaster, Joe can fight and remove treacheries using his Intellect instead of his Combat or Willpower, adding even more value to these passive boosts. 5XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  1 x Adaptable: I love this card because it rewards you for developing knowledge about the scenario at hand and it lets you optimize your deck in a unique way. It's fairly useless on your first run through a campaign, but if you like to replay every scenario a dozen times or more (and maybe write too many words about it) then this is the card for you. 2 x Pilfer -> "You owe me one!": This card is an MVP in the next scenario because it adds an enormous amount of consistency to our attempts to engineer a very specific game state—one which is necessary to achieve a good result. It allows Kymani to play the Hyperphysical Shotcaster, Logical Reasoning, and Dynamite Blast to remove treacheries and deal damage, and in some cases they can even pull off a decent "I've got a plan!" thanks to Calculated Risk. And the fact that it lets both investigators draw a card is the icing on the cake. We're replacing Pilfer because despite the next scenario having a few 4-6 clue locations Kymani will have their hands full dealing with a horde of small enemies. Ideally, we still want them to be able to pick up a clue or two, but Intel Report should suffice for that.  2 x Kicking the Hornet's Nest -> 2 x Pay Day: Kymani's deck needs more resource generators, especially now that they're going to be playing Joe's cards too. Pay Day is an effective option for its XP cost as long as Leo De Luca is in play (which is pretty much always). It will most often generate four resources, but Honed Instinct and/or Grappling Hook will occasionally bring it up to five or six (or even seven). And then, thanks to what I assume was an attempt to address some inconsistent templating around the words "perform" and "take", the 2.0 FAQ raises the possibility of generating even more. Here's the official ruling on Pay Day: Rules Sidebar: Pay Day will grant one resource for each basic action taken, any effect that states "perform an X action", any effect that states "take an X action", and free triggered abilities with a bold action trigger. It will not grant resources for Fast cards played or "action triggered abilities" that require multiple player actions to be spent on a single action performed (eg. the second Fight action on Sledgehammer will only generate one resource). The ruling goes on to clarify that in the case of Frozen in Fear, free triggered abilities with bold action designators will cost an additional action. For Kymani, this means that using Stealth (3) will generate an additional resource from Pay Day but it will also cost an action to play if they have Frozen in Fear in their threat area.  1 x Refine -> 1 x Bulletproof Vest: So, let's talk about variance. The next scenario is one of three in the campaign where our investigators can potentially take a huge beating, and while it isn't possible to build a deck that can handle every worst-case scenario the game can throw at you, we can effectively mitigate some of the worse-than-average-case ones with a few key card choices that don't compromise the overall effectiveness of the deck. One copy of Bulletproof Vest is a nod towards the fact that we're doing an ironman run and this campaign has a few big outliers with regards to incoming damage, with the side benefit that it also lets us pay slightly more than just lip service to the concept behind Charon's Obol. 6XP spent, 1XP left. It might seem odd that we're leaving 1XP on the table when we're about to take on a very difficult scenario, but that XP would have been spent on the Killer Instinct upgrade for Honed Instinct if we weren't able to play Refine earlier, and there aren't any other 1XP upgrades worth taking at this stage. At one point I considered putting "You owe me one!" into the starting deck so that I wouldn't have to buy Adaptable right away, but it felt like that would've been weakening Kymani's deck a bit too much since YOMO doesn't have much utility in the first scenario. We'll purchase another upgrade for Honed Instinct soon so we could spend the point right now (you don't need to tick all of the boxes on a customizable upgrade at once) but there are a few more important upgrades to grab first. And if there's one thing I learned from playing the next scenario a million times, it's that you never really know how much XP you're going to get from it... -------------------- Scenario Two: Dead Heat  Ah, sunny Marrakesh, where the markets bustle, the parks flourish, and the dead... walk the streets? What?? Zombies!? Our Foundation contact, Latif, nods gravely from the other side of the table. He produces a photograph of a beautiful young woman in a black dress with matching gloves, a gaudy blossom tucked behind one ear. Amaranth, the subject mentioned in our dossier, is believed to be somehow responsible for the strange events reported throughout the city, though nobody has been able to track her down. After sifting through the newspapers and other material Latif has put together it seems as though everything can be traced back to the recent tomb robbery of Razin Farhi, a 16th century philosopher and mathematician, who is rumored to be one of the founding members of the Red Coterie. That could explain Amaranth's interest in him, and if we're going to get to the bottom of what's going on in this city then our mission is clear: we need to find her.  During setup we place three resources on each of these five locations, to represent civilians. Civilians are treated as though they were investigators during the enemy phase, and if a ready enemy is at the same location as a civilian when resolving enemy attacks during the enemy phase, they attack and automatically kill a civilian (if an investigator is at the same location we can still choose to resolve the attack against us instead) and when civilians die their resource token gets placed on the scenario card. If there are no civilians left at a location it gets swapped out for its abandoned version, most of which are not great places to be.   We begin the game at the Marrakesh Railway Station and we need four clues to advance the first act and spawn Amaranth (at the end of the round). We also need to be at the Bahia Palace Gardens, which is where she is performing some kind of profane ritual using her Key, The Last Blossom.  She stands at the edge of a ritual circle, candles lit at each point, with gleaming offerings gathered around a corpse laid on an altar in the centre. On either side of the corpse, two dead warriors are laid on the ground, bedecked in ancient finery. "Soon, my love," Amaranth strokes the cheek of the corpse as the blossom in her hair unfurls. Tenebrous vines radiate out from the circle and creep across the garden. The grass and greenery shrivel under their touch, and eerie green light shimmers up the black vines, drinking the life around it. "Yo." She turns, a smirk on her face. "It appears we have guests." Advancing the first act raises the stakes in two ways: not only do we have to deal with Amaranth herself, but we also need to save as many innocent civilians as we can.  At the end of the game we flip this card over and tally up how many civilians were killed versus how many were rescued. If more were slain than rescued we suffer one mental trauma, but if we rescue more than were slain we get a bonus of 2XP. Both effects are doubled if the numbers of rescued versus slain are also doubled, but in all of my testing I only saw one of those two outcomes a few times. On average, I got slightly more 2XP outcomes than 1MT ones, and also a few ties, where nothing happens. The real prize from this scenario, however, is The Last Blossom itself, and it's strong enough in a couple of later scenarios to make a 1MT outcome here acceptable. A 2MT outcome would be... extremely unfortunate, but yeah, that hardly ever happened in testing (and not at all once I'd refined the deck). Still on the topic of civilians, there are a lot of ways for them to die. Let's look at the encounter deck first, which is probably the ugliest one in the entire game. It initially contains eight enemies: 4 x Thrall, 3 x Ghoul Minion, and 1 x Ravenous Ghoul.  When the first act advances (spawning Amaranth) her favourite pet also gets added to the encounter deck:  All of these enemies spawn at random locations, and recall that each of them will kill a civilian during the enemy phase if they're ready. Also, when the first agenda advances, for every two civilians slain we have to spawn an equal number of non-Elite enemies (drawn from the encounter deck or discard pile) and all of them gain Hunter. So, we'll be seeing a lot of enemies over the course of this scenario. But, to an extent, enemies can be managed; what can't really be managed is our token pulls, and each time we pull a Tablet token a civilian at our location is automatically killed. And, due to our narrative choices so far, there are now three Tablet tokens in the bag, which means it's pretty likely we'll see quite a lot of them over the course of the game. The one saving grace here is that the Tablet token only has a modifier of -2 and the Skull token starts out at 0, so this scenario has the easiest curve in the campaign, at least to begin with.  The Skull token gains -2 for every two civilians slain, so it ramps up based largely on how many Tablet tokens we pull, as that's the main source of civilian casualties in most games. It's also a constant source of chip damage for our investigators since, in addition to killing a civilian, it also deals one damage to whoever performed the test. The other main sources of damage (apart from the enemies) are these two treacheries:  Kymani almost always takes a hit from Cornered! (we always take the damage option) but Grasping Hands isn't a problem for them. For Joe, of course, it's the other way around. Returning to the plight of our helpless civilians, if eight (out of fifteen) of them happen to die before we've defeated Amaranth it means she's managed to successfully complete her ritual, and this guy enters play:  This is what I like to call our Critical Failure Condition. If he shows up we'll make a beeline for the Marrakesh Railway Station and book two express tickets to thefuckouttahere. We simply don't have the firepower or the endurance to be able to burn through all of his HP as well as Amaranth's, but I'm only mentioning this part for the sake of completeness because resolving the second act in this manner ceased to be a possibility pretty early on in my test runs. It's almost a given that we'll be able to land the six damage needed to defeat Amaranth before eight civilians bite the dust, at which point... Our final blow knocks Amaranth back, toppling an ancient brazier. As hungry flames consume the remnants of the ritual and the corpses, she screeches in anguish. "Do you have any idea what you have done? Razin, my love..."  Unnatural vines choke the city streets as Amaranth pursues us, drunk with power. The blossom in her hair stretches wide like a garnet maw as she laughs cruelly. She's pissed, she's coming for us, and she now has 12HP. But, crucially, the damage we've already dealt doesn't get removed (her card is flipped over when the act advances and it explicitly states to not remove anything) so now all we need to do is deal another six damage and we'll have defeated her properly. But, she also moves to a random location without an investigator, and it seems her ritual didn't completely fail because two of these guys get shuffled into the encounter deck:  So, while we're contending with an amped-up Amaranth, the first agenda (which has a doom threshold of eight) will probably advance, and, along with spawning some non-elite enemies, each investigator is forced to choose between one of two options: either heal two damage from an elite enemy in play (Amaranth), or one civilian at their location dies. And the final treacheries I'll mention in this section are a pair that don't do anything when Amaranth isn't in play, but when she is they can certainly have an impact:  So, given all of this information, why are we coming here this early in the campaign instead of when we have 20XP or more? Well, apart from the fact that the Key here is very good in two later scenarios (one of which is coming up very soon) there are two factors which make Dead Heat harder when you do it later on. The first is its built-in scaling; most scenarios include setup changes that make them harder at certain time thresholds. In this case, if we arrive after 10 time has passed we start the game with two civilians already slain (or four slain if we arrive after 17 time). And if we arrive after 14 time has passed we begin the game at Act Two and put two doom onto the agenda. The other way in which it becomes harder is through Status Reports. This is a gameplay mechanic which modifies the campaign when you reach certain time thresholds. The first one happens at 7 time and it adds one Cultist token to the bag, which in this scenario has a -6 modifier. Despite the fact that having that extra token in the bag makes it slightly less likely we'll draw a civilian-killing Tablet token, it's much better for us to be able to pass tests than not, so not having any Cultist tokens in the bag is a distinct advantage. Some of our future travel decisions will also be made with these Status Reports in mind, but I'll go over each of them when the time comes. Strategy: Minimizing civilian deaths is the name of the game here, so all of our actions need to be considered with that goal in mind. In practice, this means we won't perform any tests unless we absolutely have to, so, for example, we'll always favour spending actions to remove Compulsion instead of using a Realitycollapser test.  There is, however, one location where we can perform as many tests as we like: an abandoned one. This is also the perfect spot to be waiting at when the agenda advances, because we can't choose to kill any civilians if all of them are already dead (eddie-murphy-thinking.jpg) and if Amaranth isn't in play then we also can't choose the option to heal her, so being at an abandoned location is how we'll handle the agenda. The problem, of course, is that trying to generate an abandoned location through civilian death is both unreliable and counterproductive. The better way to do it is to rescue all the remaining civilians at a particular location, but we can't do that until we've advanced the first act and spawned Amaranth. And once she's in play we'll find ourselves on a very tight clock because she's extremely dangerous, so we'll have to deal with her as quickly as possible while also rescuing enough civilians to tip the balance in our favour. So, while preserving civilian life is always in the back of our mind, our actual plan for defeating Amaranth and getting a favourable resolution here has two distinct stages: 1) building up, and 2) going off. The build-up stage is everything that happens before the first agenda advances. During this stage, we'll get our important assets onto the table and grab a heap of clues. We'll create a clean slate with regards to enemies and treacheries in play, and we'll fill our hands and gather enough resources (using basic draw or resource actions if necessary) to be able to play or commit everything we need to ensure a smooth burst window. We'll advance the act two rounds before the agenda goes off so that we have a full round to create an abandoned location by rescuing civilians, then we'll be ready to face Amaranth. The going-off stage hopefully only lasts a couple of rounds. Once the agenda has advanced and the coast is clear, we'll deal at least six damage to Amaranth to force her to another location, then we'll handle the non-elite enemies spawned by the agenda. We'll rescue just enough civilians to get the 2XP bonus, then we'll finish Amaranth off to end the scenario. That's the plan in broad strokes, but as the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemies in the encounter deck. Moreso than the action-taxing treacheries, the enemies in this scenario will force us to go off-script, and really they're just another tax on our actions. Without going into too much more detail I will quickly cover the opening I developed here along with the agenda and act advancements, because it was fun trying to execute the same very precise strategy in every test run, or rather it was fun discovering how early my fine-tuned strategy could come completely undone (the "double Dissonant Voices on a crucial turn" run was a jaw-dropper). So yeah, this scenario can turn into a real shitshow very quickly but we definitely have the tools to handle just about anything. As is often the case in this game, it's all about making the right decisions... The Opening: Joe will move to Jemaa el-Fnaa Square and play his assets (Milan > Luxley > Death) or search for them using its action, then he'll start investigating. This location will be our base of operations until we've collected its six clues; each investigator will try to end their turn here to stack potential civilian deaths from Mythos phase tests. If Kymani doesn't have Leo De Luca in their opening hand they'll move straight to JFS to search for him, otherwise they'll make a detour to reveal Saadian's Tombs so that we can benefit from its enemy-exhausting effect later, then they'll join Joe at the Square. Kymani can also use the Move ability on the Marrakesh Railway Station to generate an additional resource from Pay Day. If any enemies spawn during the first Mythos phase Kymani will take point on handling them. They have the option to drag an enemy back to JFS to perform the second evade test there, or, if they have it, they'll burn Sneak Attack to avoid performing a test. The Act Advancement: When the doom threshold for the first agenda is at 6/8 we'll use four of Joe's clues to advance the act, which happens at the end of the round. At this stage, the following conditions should have been met:
When Amaranth spawns, she will engage Kymani and they will play Honed Instinct and evade her so that we can begin the next round with all of our actions available. After dealing with whatever the Mythos phase throws at us, we'll rescue all of the remaining civilians on the BPG (generally, whoever needs the healing will spend their clues, or if Kymani has Panic in play they can get rid of it here). The Agenda Advancement: When the agenda advances, we will spawn 1-3 non-elite enemies from the discard pile or encounter deck. We'll take Thralls from the encounter deck if there are any left because we're instructed to "spawn" enemies, not draw them, so their surge ability doesn't trigger. This means we won't have to worry about drawing them later, but they're also easier to dispose of than the other enemy options so we'd pick them anyway. Kymani will evade Amaranth again (in fact, their job for the rest of the game is to evade her each turn) then Joe will play "I've got a plan!" for four damage and follow it up with at least two more to force her to move to a new location (where she remains exhausted). We'll then deal with the new non-elite enemies while we rescue the remaining civilians, with the final turns of the game resembling an abandoned wasteland containing only us and Amaranth. And sometimes also a giant undead lion. Kalko fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 2, 2023 06:46
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How it went: Joe's opening hand contained Milan, 2 x Motivational Speech, and 2 x Deduction, while Kymani had Leo De Luca, Bulletproof Vest, and Lucky Cigarette Case. Joe used the free trigger move on the Marrakesh Railway Station to move to Jemaa el-Fnaa Square, where he played Milan, grabbed a clue with Working a Hunch, then performed an investigate at +2 to grab one clue (I wanted to be able to cover the -5 token before committing both Deductions to a single test) before drawing one card. I chose not to use the JFS search ability right away because if it turned up Alice Luxley (his highest priority asset at that point) he wouldn't be able to get the cost reduction from playing Motivational Speech, so he wouldn't be able to play any other cards for a while. On Kymani's first turn, they played Leo then moved to JFS and drew two cards (The Moon, and Intel Report). I judged it was more important for them to find their important cards than to worry about Agent Fletcher showing up (and at this point in the game the deck is still full so hitting Fletcher was a very low chance). At the end of this turn I realized I'd forgotten to open up Saadian's Tomb, as mentioned in the strategy section. Hope that doesn't cost me too much... During our first Mythos phase Joe drew a Ghoul Minion (Bahia Palace Gardens) and Kymani drew Frozen in Fear. These cards were not what we wanted to see.  Early enemies are just about the worst things you can pull in this scenario, and we also didn't have any Shotcaster or Logical Reasoning to deal with FiF efficiently. Anyway, Joe played Shortcut to move Kymani to MRS before moving there himself and then moving again to the BPG. He performed a regular fight action, committing Vicious Blow, to attack the Ghoul Minion at +2 (about a 66% chance of success) which failed. But, hey, at least he prevented a civilian death that turn. Kymani used the free trigger move on MRS to enter the BPG (costing one action due to FiF) then did a resource action before playing The Moon and taking another resource action. At the end of their turn, they used The Eye of Ravens plus a LCC commit on the FiF Willpower test (+4), which succeeded. It's always a high priority to remove these treacheries not just because of their taxing effects, but because they're also a potentially repeatable source of Tablet token pulls. On round three (2/8 doom) Joe pulled another Ghoul Minion (which fortunately appeared with him at the BPG) and Kymani drew a Tablet token on a Grasping Hands test, marking our first civilian death. Kymani went first, engaging one of Joe's ghouls, evading it with Sneak By, and then killing it with Sneak Attack. Their final action was to engage the other ghoul so that Joe would be able to play his hunch card, Preposterous Sketches. Joe's first action was to play it, drawing Alice Luxley and both Shotcasters. He played one of them and then performed a Railshooter attack (PMP -> Perception) at +5, which succeeded. Phew, two dead enemies and it's only the third turn. Maybe now we can get back to JFS to continue our clue-gathering... On round four (3/8 doom) Joe pulled a Thrall (Saadian's Tomb, sigh) which surged into Rotting Remains for three horror (which we don't care about because three copies of that card are virtually the only sources of horror in this scenario). Then Kymani also pulled a Thrall (Tanneries) which surged into the Ravenous Ghoul (BPG). So, this run was trying its best to go off the rails, but we could still maybe forestall a headlong plummet into the ravine...  Joe's hunch card for this round turned out to be Unsolved Case. Hmm, about that ravine... Kymani went first, evading the Ravenous Ghoul with Hatchet Man (+4), then they moved to the Tanneries and performed the Thrall's evade (+5) before engaging it with their free trigger ability and moving to JFS, then MRS, then ST using the free trigger move. They performed the second Thrall's fast evade (+5) as well, so, once again, we were able to prevent any immediate civilian deaths. On Joe's turn, he played Unsolved Case, then took a Railshooter shot at the Ravenous Ghoul with Perception (+5) to kill it (thanks to Hatchet Man) but he drew another Tablet token, so now there was only one civilian left on the BPG. With his last action, he played Alice Luxley through Motivational Speech. On round five (4/8 doom) Joe pulled a Bound in Red which surged into Frozen in Fear, and Kymani pulled the other copy of Rotting Remains, taking one horror. Finally, no more enemies! Kymani went first, succeeding at four separate evade tests to discard both Thralls. They played an LCC after the first two and then ended their turn with a Pay Day for four resources. Joe switched the Shotcaster to Realitycollapser mode and removed Frozen in Fear (+4) before taking a Shortcut to MRS and then moving back to JFS to use its action, hoping for Death but finding an Enchanted Blade instead, which he played. A couple of mercifully uneventful rounds followed, during which time Kymani played Joe's spare Shotcaster (after the first had been discarded) and we cleared the remaining clues from JFS and picked up a couple at BPG. On round seven (6/8 doom) there was one doom on Leo De Luca from an earlier Touch of the Beyond and I had debated on the round before whether it made sense to advance the agenda a round earlier since the board state was reasonably optimal. During the new round's Mythos phase, Joe pulled a Thrall (MRS) which surged into a Ghoul Minion (MRS) and Kymani pulled Famine, so at this point it was pretty obvious that letting the agenda advance early was not the correct play.  Kymani had their second copy of Leo in hand but was unable to simply play him due to the uniqueness rule, but now that there was a source of damage in play it would be possible to knock the doomed Leo off and gain an extra turn for both investigators. The Famine made things awkward and I went back and forth a fair bit trying to decide whether to remove it with the Shotcaster before ultimately choosing not to. Planning the sequence of moves for this turn involved an interesting technicality with regards to taking additional actions, one which deserves its own... Rules Sidebar: When spending actions during your turn, the first action you spend each turn takes up the "additional" designation. If Leo De Luca is discarded mid-turn, you do not lose one action from your total pool of actions for the turn. If you then play a second copy of the card, you gain a further additional action. Thus, Kymani's first action was to move to the MRS, where they performed the Thrall's fast evade (+5) and then played Stealth to trigger an Attack of Opportunity from the Ghoul, which defeated Leo De Luca. Their third action was a Railshooter shot (+3) to kill the Ghoul, then their fourth action was to play their second copy of Leo. They then used Stealth to discard the Thrall before using the free trigger move on MRS to enter the BPG, where their fifth and final action was to gain one resource. On Joe's turn (at BPG), he played No Stone Unturned, hoping for Death but getting a Dynamite Blast. He then failed an investigate test before succeeding at one to pick up one clue, pulling an Elder Sign in the process, putting Working a Hunch on the bottom of his hunch deck (this card had proven to be the most useful one during endgame). At the end of this round I decided not to advance the act because Kymani had only just drawn their first copy of Disguise during upkeep, and they only had two cards in hand total (and the other one wasn't Honed Instinct). On round eight (7/8 doom) Joe took two damage from a Cornered and Kymani pulled another Famine. I decided not to get rid of it again because the only card we needed to play this turn was Disguise, and I wanted Kymani to use their remaining actions to draw cards. After playing Disguise they drew two cards and found Agent Fletcher, so they used their last action to evade him with Disguise, then they managed to discard him with Stealth thanks to a commit from Joe. At the end of this round, we advanced the act (spawning Amaranth) but unfortunately Kymani still didn't have a Honed Instinct. On round nine the first agenda advanced, spawning two Thralls (one from the deck and one from the discard pile) at MRS and JFS, and the last civilian at BPG was also killed. Joe drew a Touch of the Beyond, adding one doom to Milan, and Kymani drew a Key Charge which surged into a Grasping Hands, hitting them for two damage (which they took on the vest). We didn't get the textbook act and agenda advancements we were hoping for, but considering everything that had happened so far we were still doing pretty well! Kymani went first, evading Amaranth at +4 with Disguise, but they drew the -5 token and failed. Their second attempt succeeded, then they moved to MRS and evaded the Thrall there, drawing a Tablet token in the process, which killed a civilian. They also drew Panic from their LCC on this test, which was more or less fine at this point because they already had all of their assets in play. They discarded the Thrall with Stealth, then used the free trigger move to enter JFS, evading and discarding the Thrall there, but pulling another two Tablet tokens in the process. When it rains, it pours. Meanwhile, back at the BPG, Joe played "I've got a plan!" to hit Amaranth for four damage, pulling yet another Tablet token, but there weren't any civilians left here. He followed it up with an Enchanted Blade attack, committing Vicious Blow at +4 to hit her for another three damage, which advanced Act Two, sending her to Saadian's Tomb. He then moved to the Tanneries with his last action so that he could rescue some civilians there next turn, which was slightly risky, but the priority now was to get them rescued and we were a bit behind. On round ten (1/7 doom), Joe pulled a Bound in Red, which attached to Amaranth, and Kymani pulled an Ancient Raider, which ended up with her at the Tomb. How convenient...  Joe grabbed a clue from the Tanneries with Working a Hunch, but instead of rescuing a civilian he moved to JFS to rescue the last one there, then he played Dynamite Blast to kill the Ancient Raider at ST and deal another three damage to Amaranth (who now only had 2HP left). We had three different ways to land the coup de grace on her but we couldn't afford to yet because we still needed to rescue more civilians. Kymani moved into ST, evaded Amaranth, played Intel Report to grab two clues, and then rescued a civilian. On round eleven (2/7 doom), Joe used TTI on Cornered to avoid taking damage, and Kymani pulled a Distorted Reasoning.  Joe moved into ST and rescued the last two civilians, and Kymani evaded Amaranth at +3 with help from Joe since they were out of Disguise charges now. They then removed Distorted Reasoning with the Shotcaster and played Faustian Bargain, taking all five resources for themselves since Joe really didn't need any. On round twelve (3/7 doom), Joe took three damage from a Grasping Hands and Kymani took two horror from Rotting Remains, but hey, no tempo loss! Joe played Working a Hunch (the third one this game) to grab a clue from ST, then he moved to the MRS and rescued the last two civilians there. Kymani evaded Amaranth again (+2) then picked up the last clue on ST with Intel Report before moving to the Tanneries (at this point we could still afford to lose a civilian, and the encounter deck was so low that I was pretty sure there couldn't be more than one card that initiated a test in it anyway). On round thirteen (4/7 doom), Joe found Khalid (BPG) and Kymani pulled a Dissonant Voices.  Joe moved to the Tanneries and rescued a civilian, then he played Logical Reasoning to remove DV. Kymani rescued the last civilian we needed to put the balance in our favour (8/15) then they played Disguise and moved to the BPG and used it to evade Khalid. I spent a good amount of time trying to come up with a plan to kill Khalid and finish Amaranth off as well, knowing the whole time it was a fool's errand since I had never managed to do it in 15+ test runs, but such is the allure of XP. On round fourteen (5/7 doom) Kymani moved to the MRS and gave Amaranth the runaround before finishing her off with a Sneak Attack. Resolution 4. Amaranth's tortured cry resounds through the streets as she collapses. A heady wind picks up, whipping the dust in the street into a frantic dervish as the hot sun beats down overhead. Black ichor pools around her body as the nexus of vines begins to wither and dessicate all around us. The hordes of risen dead stop in their tracks, as if waiting for our move, and we can see the remaining civilians of Marrakesh flee the city beyond them. Standing over the beautiful, terrible woman, we feel a pang of pity. Turning her over, we notice the voluptuous flower behind her ears has wilted in the heat. She lets out a primal scream as we pull the blossom from her ear: the stem is several inches longer than expected, and sticky with blood. Amaranth convulses on the ground. Spitting black ichor, the young woman claws at us like a frightened animal, then bolts away down a narrow street. Kymani Jones is the bearer of The Last Blossom. We haven't seen the last of Amaranth. +1 Time. Time = 6.  The Last Blossom: On our hypothetical tier list of Keys this one would be near the top, possibly even the second best one given the context in which we'll be using it; leveraging its heal goes a long way towards enabling the strategy I developed for our fourth scenario, and of course the whole reason we came to Marrakesh in the first place is because it will really help us later in "Without a Trace", which deals out significant amounts of damage and horror. Kymani will take this one because they're better able to move to Joe's position than the other way around. We'll be picking up one mental trauma from an encounter soon, so we'll be using this Key on the first turn of each scenario thereafter, but it's quite easy to shift it back to stable because it's been ruled that you only need to heal one point of damage from a single enemy to do so. This means that an incidental ping from Alice Luxley is enough to reset it, and since Kymani will be discarding most of the enemies we meet we generally don't care whether they get healed in the first place. ----- 1VP (Amaranth) + 2XP (rescued civilians) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 3XP for Joe. 5XP for Kymani. Kymani now has 6XP (1XP from leftover). ----- Destination: Rome. +1 Time. Time = 7. Returning to Rome, we can't help but notice that the skyline has a few more gaps in it than when we were last here, as though the city itself were disappearing. We spend a day planning our next move, and it turns out there's another Key located nearby, in the hands of the Coterie. According to one of the Foundation's dossiers there's also some kind of beastman running around the city, but they've unhelpfully redacted all of the probably-very-important details again. Each investigator may begin the next scenario they play with one additional resource in their resource pool. Status Report - Alpha: As we're about to leave, we receive a dispatch from the Foundation containing more reports of strange disappearances all over the world. One Cultist token is added to the chaos bag. Destination: Alexandria. +1 Time. Time = 8. Upgrades Joe: Now that "Dead Heat" is behind us most of Joe's fighting kit is completely useless, so we'll use the 3XP to purchase three 1XP cards in order to replace as much of it as possible.  2 x Enchanted Blade -> 2 x Join the Caravan: This card will replace Shortcut in the hunch deck. Since your investigator card counts for the synergy trait it will never cost more than two resources, and with Alice Luxley in play it costs only one. It is slightly situational so it may go unplayed sometimes, but a fast move to any revealed location is a very valuable effect to have in this campaign.  1 x Vicious Blow -> 1 x Magnifying Glass (1): The cost reduction here is better than it seems because this card will never sit in our hand; it will always be played, so we'll always get value from it. 3XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  2 x Lucky Cigarette Case -> 2 x Lucky Cigarette Case (3): Kymani's effectiveness depends very heavily on finding a number of key assets, including single copies of a few, and, as mentioned in the deck list section, they also have a built-in oversuccess generator. This card also gives them a lot more control over their weakness, Agent Fletcher, since as long as they succeed by at least two on a test they can avoid drawing him (and they can also draw him deliberately if it makes sense to do so). For these reasons, this is a high priority upgrade. 6XP spent, 0XP left. Adaptable  2 x Hatchet Man -> 1 x Pilfer, 1 x Small Favor: Pilfer will help us clear a six clue VP location in the next scenario, but we're only including one copy because that location will typically only become available in the final few rounds so we don't want to draw it early. Small Favor is an efficient way to deal with an aloof enemy which will probably show up before the end of the scenario. Despite only having one copy of each of these cards, we can expect to have them in hand when we need them in every game thanks to Lucky Cigarette Case (3). We're replacing Hatchet Man here because there are only a couple of non-elite enemies in the next scenario that we'll actually want to dispose of, and while our goal is to kill another boss, we can only do that very late in the scenario so this card will be a dead draw most of the time. -------------------- Scenario Three: Dogs of War ...or Old Man Yells at Investigators.  Arriving in Alexandria, it's clear that something is amiss. Dark clouds gather over the city and waves crash ominously against the coastline, all signs pointing towards an imminent storm. And to make matters worse, we have a tail. It started with just a few, but, navigating our way through the city towards the Windsor Hotel, we spot more and more of them. Local authorities perhaps, or Foundation agents keeping tabs on us? Hopefully not Coterie operatives who- "Welcome to Alexandria, agents. Yes, we know who you are," one of them interrupts, having appeared right in front of us. He raises his hands to show he means no harm, his red tie and cufflinks a dead giveaway. "Don't worry, we come in peace. One of our number wishes to speak with you. We have a problem in Alexandria that perhaps you can help us with." Our skepticism is plain for all to see, but he continues, "I understand why you're wary, but I think you'll find this agreement to your liking. If you come seeking the Beast, believe it or not, our goals are aligned." After considering our options we decide to take him up on his offer to meet with a high-ranking member of the Coterie, and he leads us to the Bourse, the stock exchange building in the heart of the city. On the top floor we enter an enormous, richly-appointed office with a surprising number of ancient relics on display, including a large portrait of a knight wearing a suit of scarlet-plated armour. Our host approaches us, an elderly man of English or perhaps French descent, wearing an elegant brown coat over an outfit of outdated red formalwear. "I suppose you have many questions. First, introductions are in order. I have gone by several names in my long tenure, but you may simply call me the Claret Knight, as others do. I know why you are here. You come seeking this, do you not?” He unlocks a nearby armoire, and as its door opens, a flash of light illuminates the room. Inside is a crystal vial containing a shimmering sapphire substance. Bingo. "We have guarded this implement—the Light of Pharos—for many years. Protected it from those who would use it to harm, rather than guide, humanity. Only we have the capacity to do so. To keep such powers out of the hands of knaves and troublemakers. Now, here is the issue: there is another who desires the Light of Pharos, one who is far less benevolent." We suspect the Beast is the one he's referring to, and he confirms it. He goes on to say that it's actually a member of the Coterie as well, revealing that the organization isn't immune to some amount of infighting. He says that the Beast is on its way here to claim the Key, which is why he brought us here. "This is a place of power, one of several throughout the city which we have established to prevent uninvited guests from entering. Had you not been escorted, you might have turned to ash. But any such locus can be destroyed, and then the Beast would descend upon us like a starving wolf. We cannot be everywhere at once. Help us defend the locuses, so that we may retain guardianship of the Light of Pharos. In return, I'll tell you what you wish to know about our organization. And you will have prevented catastrophe from befalling this fair city, which has seen more than enough calamity already. What do you say? Can we rely upon you to make the right choice?" We shake our heads in unison. "A shame," the knight intones, his tenor changing almost immediately. "You are no longer guests in my city. We will not suffer a war on two fronts. Depart from Alexandria immediately or suffer the consequences." Surrounded as we are by his muscle, this would be an inopportune moment to make a break for the Key, so instead we decide to leave in an orderly fashion and regroup. "Cya 'round..." The moment we leave the Bourse, we are accosted by a man in a pinstripe suit and a red fez. He flashes a Foundation badge and motions us into a nearby alley, where he introduces himself as Hossam Sirry. We tell him what happened inside and he agrees that we made the right call. As a local, he certainly has no love for the Coterie; his disdain for them is unmistakable. "Let us help one another. Your objective is to claim the knight's Key for your own, yes? This will also weaken the Coterie’s control over this city. That is a result I can get behind." The cell is assisting Agent Sirry. Rebuffing the Claret Knight means we have to remove one Tablet token from the chaos bag and add one Elder Thing token, which sets us back on the bonus XP track (if there are four of either token and you try to add another you get 1XP instead) but The Light of Pharos is easily the best Key in the game and going up against the Knight instead of the Beast is the only way to claim it this early in the campaign.  We begin play at Qaitbay Citadel and our objective is to reach the Bourse, where the Claret Knight is waiting for us with his Key.  Before we can get inside, however, we need to destroy a protective barrier at each of the four locations connected to the Citadel.  There is only one agenda and one act here, and we have fourteen rounds to get the job done.  Standing in our way is a motley crew of Coterie goons.  And there are some spatial anomalies that build up wherever we go.  Once we've smashed all four Locuses we can enter the Bourse, where we can claim The Light of Pharos by either sneaking around the Claret Knight or roughing him up a bit.  And that's it. This scenario is a pretty big step down from "Dead Heat" but it can still throw up some surprises and, as always, we'll need to play as efficiently as possible to be able to get everything done. Strategy: During setup we have to spawn a Coterie Assassin with two extra decoys, so four concealed cards in total, which we'll place at each eligible location except for Victoria College because it has the highest shroud value. Kymani's first task will be to expose this Assassin, and from then on they'll handle any other enemies which appear, although we might choose to simply ignore the rest of the concealed ones depending upon where their minicards get placed. Joe will proceed to gather clues and use them to destroy each locus, though it would be best if Kymani can use Intel Report to grab the two from the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa since it has a very high shroud value.  There are exactly enough clues available to destroy all of the locuses using their built-in actions, but using clues exclusively is very action intensive so we'll try to supplement that with "I've got a plan!" or Shotcaster attacks. "You owe me one!" is still good here for that purpose, and because some of the same action-taxing treacheries from the previous scenario are also present. Its draw effect will be extra helpful too because, well, our general approach to this scenario will need a slight adjustment from the norm, one which can perhaps best be described as "use it or lose it."  During testing this scenario often ended with only one or two rounds to spare, which meant that both copies of Key Charge pretty much always appeared, which in turn meant our investigators lost eight cards over the course of the game. For Kymani this is particularly bad since some of their expensive assets may get stuck in their hand, but Lucky Cigarette Case (3) can help alleviate this issue by enabling a kind of just-in-time approach to asset management, where they can choose to draw an important asset only if they can afford to play it right away, knowing that they will probably be able to access it again when they need to. Regarding all the hex treacheries that stick to a location when drawn, we'll be spending more time at the four Locus locations than any others so those ones will be more likely to accumulate hexes, but in most cases it will be a waste of actions to deliberately move out of one at the end of a turn simply to prevent them from stacking up. They're not so dangerous to warrant that, but if we end up not clearing many concealed cards then we'll take additional chip damage from the Coterie Assassin or Swift Retreat, so we may need to adjust things on the fly. In general, throughout most of the test runs, I did play around the hexes and the concealed cards fairly often, but mostly in minor ways, such as not entering a Locus with the last action of a turn if there was a meaningful alternative action available at the current location. Lastly, most of the scenario will take place while we're at a Locus location, which means the Skull token will be -4 most of the time, but we can cover that pretty comfortably for our important tests now so the token bag won't be much of a concern.  How it went: Joe's opening hand contained Death, Luxley, and a Shotcaster. Fairly stacked, and if he didn't have those later two assets I actually wouldn't have used the reaction on Death to put it into play because of Touch of the Beyond.  If this hits an asset that can't be discarded (which, between both investigators, is anything other than an ally, Shotcaster, Magnifying Glass or Lucky Cigarette Case) then there's no counterplay to losing a round to the doom, and I've been caught out like that more than once during test runs over the course of the campaign. Joe's hunch card turned out to be Unsolved Case, so his first turn was to play it, then Luxley, then investigate to grab a clue and expose the concealed card using Luxley's reaction, which turned out to be a decoy. Kymani's opening hand contained Leo, both LCCs, and "You owe me one!" They also had a copy of Sneak By, so they played Leo then drew a card; if the drawn card was Agent Fletcher they could use it to both evade him and gain enough resources to play an LCC, otherwise they would simply take a resource action to play it. It turned out to be Stealth, so their third action was to gain a resource and their fourth was to play the LCC, since getting our assets into play as soon as possible is a high priority here. During upkeep, Kymani drew Faustian Bargain, which was great because it would allow us to put Stealth and a Shotcaster into play next turn. Hey, this is going pretty well... On round two (1/14 doom), Joe drew Key Charge, which surged into... Key Charge, which surged into a Compulsion. I made a list of the cards we lost: Crack the Case, Take the Initiative, Hyperphysical Shotcaster, Shortcut, Faustian Bargain, Sneak By, "You Owe me one!", Lucky Cigarette Case. Oh, then Kymani drew a Touch of the Beyond, hitting Leo De Luca, which, as discussed, was fine. So, between us, we had one card left in hand: Stealth. At least we didn't have to play around Key Charge for the rest of the game, I guess. Anyway, Joe's Intellect of six was enough to start making progress on clue-grabbing, so he moved to the Windsor Palace Hotel to take advantage of its ally and item cost reduction, which might help us recover.  Kymani was starved for resources for a good number of turns, but they did put Grappling Hook into play on round three (at the Hotel, using their only two resources) which they had drawn from No Stone Unturned. One of the other cards revealed in that search was Pay Day, but I didn't pick it because they had nothing to spend the resources on except Stealth, which wasn't as proactive a play as Grappling Hook. With the Hook, Kymani can investigate pretty effectively, and they could also gain some action compression by clearing the remaining concealed cards belonging to the Assassin at the same time. On round five (4/14 doom), Joe drew a Scarlet Beast, the only enemy I didn't mention in the description above.  Kymani moved to the Qaitbay Citadel then used their Grappling Hook to move to Victoria College, engage, and then evade the Beast at +5 with Manual Dexterity committed. They then drew a -3 token on a Stealth evade (+7), discarding the Beast and drawing a Sneak By from their 4-point LCC search (Stealth plus Kymani's reaction is a potent combination for LCC tutoring). They then moved back to QC since they had been working on the other side of the map before they had to help Joe. On Joe's turn, he grabbed the last two clues on VC (failing once) then used Join the Caravan to teleport to The Corniche. He had "I've got a plan!" in hand so on his next turn he was going to use it to hit the Locus for four damage. However... On round six (5/14 doom), Joe drew Warped Reality, which wasn't terrible in and of itself, but it did make the action sequence for this turn more complex.  His hunch card was Scene of the Crime, but he needed one more resource and one more clue to be able to play IGaP for four damage, so he couldn't play SotC, investigate, and then play IGaP and escape all on the same turn (I was really trying to avoid losing even more cards this game to Warped Reality). He did have Milan in play at this point, so his first action was to investigate at +5, grabbing the clue and the resource he needed. He then played IGaP at +3, and it failed to a -4 token. It was a risky move, and in hindsight the time pressure probably wasn't bad enough to warrant it. It was a costly mistake since now it would take a further two actions using the Locus ability to make up the damage. On Kymani's turn of this round, they moved to The Corniche and grabbed a clue using their Grappling Hook, then they spent the two actions to remove Warped Reality since we would now have to hang around here for a couple more turns anyway. This was a really inefficient round, but over the next few we would proceed to steadily grab clues and tear down the Locuses, while trying (and mostly failing) to avoid taking damage from the Coterie Assassin which we hadn't been able to clear. Kymani exposed one card at the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa to make it a safe spot for both investigators to end their turn, in the process revealing one of the two Coterie Enforcers which were in play. They were able to discard him with Stealth, and a few turns later they left Agent Fletcher here, having evaded him with Disguise, knowing that it would take five rounds for him to reach The Bourse, which is where we were headed. On round ten (9/14 doom), Joe drew Bound in Red (the second copy) and Kymani drew another Touch of the Beyond, so Leo now had two doom on him.  On Kymani's turn, they flipped The Last Blossom to remove the first Bound in Red, then they shifted TLB, removing one damage from a Coterie Provocateur (which we left alive with a Luxley ping on round three in anticipation of this moment) then they flipped it to remove the second Bound in Red (you can't voluntarily shift a Key more than once per turn, but there's no limit on the number of times you can flip it as the result of a cost or effect). They then played their Bulletproof Vest, because they would need it for an upcoming play of considerable finesse... On round eleven (10/14 doom), Joe drew another Warped Reality at Victoria College. There were two Coterie Provocateurs here, and his first action was to destroy the fourth Locus, activating The Bourse as the fifth and final one.  He then played No Stone Unturned, grabbing IGaP, then he drew a card so that he didn't have to hollow one of the three important cards left in his hand (he drew a PMP, which was a fine sacrifice since his deck was almost empty). On Kymani's turn, they moved into VC with Joe then used Realitycollapser to remove the Warped Reality, then they used their Grappling Hook to move into The Bourse, committing Disguise to reach +4 on an investigate (covering the Skull token). They drew a -4 token and collected one clue, then during the enemy phase, the Claret Knight dealt one damage and two horror to the doomed Leo De Luca.  Also during the enemy phase, both Coterie Provocateurs moved into The Bourse. On round twelve (11/14 doom), Joe drew a Compulsion, which was kind of gross because it could have derailed things, but we had made good time so we still had an extra round to spare if we needed it. In the event, Joe passed the Compulsion token draw, then he lobbed a stick of dynamite into the The Bourse, hitting the Claret Knight for three damage and killing both Provocateurs (with Kymani taking it on the vest). He then moved into The Bourse with Join the Caravan and grabbed three clues with his last two actions (using Deduction). On Kymani's turn, they used their last Disguise charge to evade the CK at +5, then they used Intel Report to grab the last two clues before making a Railshooter attack at +2, knowing that a failure wouldn't matter since we had a full round to deal five damage and several ways to do it. They succeeded though, hitting the CK for two damage. Then, during the enemy phase, the CK engaged Joe. On round thirteen (12/14 doom), Joe drew the other Scarlet Beast, but it didn't matter. His first action was to play "I've got a plan!" at +5 for four damage, finishing off the Claret Knight and ending the scenario. Resolution 2. "Fools," the knight utters, clutching his side. "Do you not understand? We are the last guardians of humanity. Without us..." Cutting him off, several of his bodyguards suddenly rush into the chamber, but they are too late to stop us. Rather than confront us, they pull their leader to safety. "You will pay for this!" the elderly man shouts through a barrage of coughs as he is escorted off the premises. "We will pay for this." Kymani Jones is the bearer of The Light of Pharos. We haven't seen the last of the Claret Knight. +2 Time. Time = 10.  The Light of Pharos: Saving three resources and an action to play a card is an extremely powerful effect in Kymani's hands. This is the best Key in the game, so it's only appropriate that it has the absolute worst Unstable shift. We will pretty much never use it more than once per game (and almost always on the first turn) but it's worth noting that like The Last Blossom, its flip condition has been ruled to be very lenient, such that only one investigator needs to discard a single card to shift it back to Stable. Kymani is overdue for another resource generator, but picking this Key up here lets us go a bit longer without having to spend XP on one. ----- 5VP (locations) + 1VP (The Claret Knight) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani only) = 6XP for Joe. 8XP for Kymani. ----- After laying low for a few days in one of Agent Sirry's safehouses outside the city, we meet with him and he gives us an update on what's been going on. The Claret Knight and his entourage have left Alexandria, much to Sirry's satisfaction. For all their posturing about "guiding humanity", it seems that the moment they lost control of their relic, their stake in the city vanished as well. The Beast is nowhere to be found too, which can only be a good thing. Status Report - Epsilon: Returning to the city to make our preparations to leave, we get the distinct impression we're being followed. There's certainly no shortage of enemies that have a score to settle with us... For the remainder of the campaign (except during the finale), when setting up a scenario, shuffle one of the enemies from the Red Coterie set which we "haven't seen the last of" into the encounter deck. Destination: Kathmandu. +2 Time (via Bombay). Time = 12. Having decided to cast our net a bit wider, we arrive in Kathmandu. The Himalayas loom over the city, their peaks illuminated by the westward sun, the sky bathed in pinks and purples. A breathtaking sight, but we can't hang around to appreciate it. We came here for a reason: to locate one of the targets mentioned in our Foundation documents. Aliki Zoni Uperetria, a teenage girl of unknown descent wearing a white dress with a red sash, has been seen in the area, and ever since we arrived we've been hearing a faint, shrill whistle—something that was also mentioned in the dossier. Evening sets in as we wander the streets, and we come to realize that we're the only ones that can hear the whistling noise. It grows in volume as we head north, so we continue on, eventually reaching an art gallery nestled between several age-old buildings. The whistling has become very unpleasant, but as we explore the gallery it suddenly stops just as we reach a section of empty space where something important was clearly meant to be. A lone voice pierces the sudden quiet, and we spin around to find a girl dressed in white standing at the other end of the hall, dark hair draped over her face, masking her expression. A long scarlet sash wrapped around her waist flutters behind her, despite the fact that there is no breeze. She speaks in a language we don't understand, then she speaks again in a different language which we vaguely recognize as Latin. She chooses yet another language, perhaps ancient Greek, and we try to talk to her but due to the language barrier it's hard to work out exactly what she wants from us. She approaches us, making no sound whatsoever on the wooden floor. She gestures at the empty lot and whistles softly, then she wrenches something from around her neck and extends it toward us in a closed fist. Accepting her offer (removing one Elder Thing token from the chaos bag and adding one Tablet) it turns out to be a whistle carved out of bone to look like the head and beak of a white raven. Glancing back up to question her, she has vanished, and although nobody else seems to hear it, the whining, whistling noise has returned. Soul-wrenching, ear-splitting, it does not cease for as long as the whistle remains in our possession. The cell possesses a mysterious whistle. Each investigator suffers one mental trauma as the shrill sound follows them everywhere they go. Destination: Perth. +2 Time (via Kuala Lumpur). Time = 14. After that last experience we decide to take a break from hunting down any more Coterie members. According to the Foundation, a zoologist named Dewi Irawan has published several surveys about disappearing wildlife; she claims that entire species and the memory of their existence has been erased. Now that is something we can relate to. "Have you ever heard of the red-tailed quokka?" She leafs through a sketchbook on the table of a cafe at the local university, coming to a blank page. "On a survey five years ago, I took several sketches in the wild. But recently, I opened my books and the sketches were blank, as if they had never been drawn. Moreover, every footnote and reference to them in academia has vanished. I asked my professor at Cambridge—the man who taught me what red-tailed quokkas were—and he looked at me as though I had gone mad." We assure her she isn't going mad, and we share some of the information we've discovered so far. She suggests that what we've both been experiencing feels like the introduction of a new apex predator into an ecosystem that hasn't evolved to withstand it, except that this predator feeds on existence itself. "I cannot help feeling that we are its prey." Hmm, sure hope we never run into that thing, whatever it is. She hands us her business card, with the name of a hotel in Rio de Janeiro written on the back. She mentions she'll be traveling there to continue her survey and present a lecture, and we're welcome to visit again if we're in the area. Each investigator earns one experience, as they gain insight into the strange happenings around the world. Joe now has 7XP. Kymani now has 9XP. Destination: Sydney. Time +1. Time = 15. A field researcher in charge of paradimensional analysis has been operating out of an old, condemned warehouse near Botany Bay on the eastern side of the city. She has an entire wall of filing cabinets containing years and years of research, and her table is covered in a mess of maps and photographs. "Ah, the new cell." She flips on a fluorescent light which coldly illuminates the room. "The name’s Quinn. The commissioner told me you might drop by." We get down to business, soon learning that Agent Quinn has been looking into the same disappearances that attracted our attention before we joined the Foundation. We share everything we've learned so far with her. "That lines up with my research," she says, motioning to her cluttered table. "But if that’s true, these things have been active for literally hundreds—thousands of years. And we have collectively forgotten everything that has been erased, save for a desperate few that cling to memory. Do you understand what this means?" Apart from the fact that humanity is at risk of becoming an endangered species, we're not quite sure what she's getting at. "I have a hunch, but I cannot look into it here. Looks like I’m headed back to Britain. I know you have your own assignment to get to, but, if you can spare the time, can you come meet me in Amesbury? It is just due west of London." We are now allowed to travel back to London. Status Report - Beta: While pondering our next destination, we receive a coded missive from Commissioner Taylor herself: "Agents, not long ago, a massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia. It is classified as an impact event, but this is just a cover story. Our intel now indicates Coterie involvement. I have reason to believe this may be the site of one of their sanctums. Perhaps even their primary safehouse. You have clearance to investigate the site, but be prepared for anything." One Cultist token is added to the chaos bag. We are now allowed to travel to Tunguska (this will end the campaign). So, where to from here? We still have our Expedited Ticket so we could go literally anywhere in the world, but, well, in this case the campaign structure is going to dictate our next move. The next status report arrives at 20 Time and it removes one of our Keys at random. So, right now, we have a one in three chance of losing The Last Blossom, which, as mentioned, we would really like to have for "Without a Trace". There is a way to reclaim one of your lost keys but it's a huge waste of time and not worth doing. Instead, the way we'll mitigate this potential bad result is to increase the number of Keys we own, and it just so happens there's a Key available in a city right next door to Sydney... at least according to our travel brochure. It's time for a good, old-fashioned Thief-Off! Destination: Buenos Aires. +1 Time. Time = 16. Upgrades Joe:  2 x Crack the Case -> 2 x "I've had worse..." (2): This card provides fast resource generation much like the one it's replacing, albeit with a lower ceiling. Its conditional requirement is the important part though, as our strategy for the next scenario relies on us being able to absorb a huge amount of damage and horror.  1 x Dynamite Blast -> 1 x Dynamite Blast (2): Despite my love for this card's thematic value, I do honestly believe it's one of the most useful and versatile tools in the game to have at your disposal. This is a solid upgrade to its usability, and if Joe could take Dynamite Blast (3) I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat, especially in this campaign. 1 x Vicious Blow -> 1 x Magnifying Glass (1): The second copy of our favourite tool. 7XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  1 x Pilfer -> 1 x Ornate Bow: This is a great offensive option for Kymani and it combos very well with a new TSK card we'll pick up later, but we're adding it now because the next scenario has another boss to kill. One copy of this card is enough to deal with all of the elites for the rest of the campaign because they generally only appear late in a scenario so Kymani will have had plenty of time to find it with their Lucky Cigarette Case (3) (or No Stone Unturned). It's also a good answer to Agent Fletcher, since without any other bonuses it will always be a +5 attack that deals exactly the right amount of damage to defeat him. 1 x Small Favor -> 1 x Stealth (3): A second copy of Stealth (3) will be particularly important here for its ability to expose a concealed card without spending an action.  1 x Charisma: As mentioned, we need to increase our effective life totals for our strategy to work in the next scenario, but the Rogue card pool has very few items which offer any horror soak. So, we're turning to the ally slot. Adaptable  2 x "You owe me one!" -> 2 x Lonnie Ritter: Lonnie's body offers a substantial amount of soak, and if we can get our Bulletproof Vest into play early we might not have to worry about damage and horror for the rest of the scenario. Lonnie will be with us for a while, but we were always going to invite another ally to come along later, so the 3XP spent on Charisma isn't going to waste; in fact, it's at least as important right here for this purpose as it will be later on. We're replacing "You owe me one!" because while it served us very well, its utility is no longer needed. 9XP spent, 0XP left. Kalko fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 2, 2023 06:47
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Scenario Four: Sanguine Shadows Subject #16-D, a young woman of Argentinian descent, is believed to be responsible for several high profile burglaries in Buenos Aires. The Foundation refers to her as the "Girl in the Carmine Coat", but the locals simply call her La Chica Roja. Unlike some of the other Coterie members we've crossed paths with, she appears to be harmless, but she has a knack for evading detection and getting out of tight spots, possibly with the aid of some paradimensional capability. Ahead of our arrival in the city, we contacted a police officer by the name of Matias Bolivar. Meeting him at a cafe overlooking the harbour, he seems extremely eager to hear any information we might have concerning La Chica Roja. So, now we have a choice to make. We can either tell him everything we learned about her from our Foundation file (removing one ET token from the bag and adding one Tablet token) or we can just throw him a few breadcrumbs (vice versa with the tokens). We decide to tell him what we know and, contrary to our expectations, he readily accepts the idea that she may have some kind of supernatural power. "Of course, it makes so much sense. The way she would vanish into thin air, move with such speed... so, how do you intend to help us catch her?" We explain that we're going after her by ourselves and that all we need from him is some information regarding her objective and last known whereabouts. He pulls out several photos of buildings from around town, places she's been spotted at recently, and we can only assume she's planning more heists. If we can catch her in the act we'll be able to question her and perhaps relieve her of her Key, if she does in fact possess one.  This scenario consists of six locations arranged around a central hub (there are seven in the picture but one is removed at random during setup, which in this case was the Catedral Metropolitana). One resource token is placed on each of the six locations to represent LCR's potential targets, and a concealed card is also placed at each of these locations because she begins the game in the shadows.  To advance the act we need to find her by exposing her minicard, but if we find a decoy she attacks us instead. To prevent that from happening, each location has an ability which will let us look at its concealed cards.   The agenda here has a doom threshold of seven but it begins the game with two doom on it.  We only have four rounds to track her down, at which point... Following all of our leads, we manage to beat La Chica Roja to her target and lie in ambush. She arrives soon after and sets to work, but it's not long before she realizes something is wrong. She hums a jazzy improvisation and saunters around the room, scanning for something. "Come on out," she says at last, a smirk on her lips. We reveal ourselves and tell her to stop what she is doing. "Or what?" she grins. "You gonna make me?"  We can now try to talk to her, or we can simply attack. Either way... "Fine, you can have this one," the mysterious thief calls to us as she makes her escape. "There's more where that came from, anyway!" Before we can catch her, with a twirl of her stark red coat, she vanishes into the shadows without a trace. We claim her prize for ourselves, adding the resource target to the scenario card, then the act deck gets reset and LCR returns to the shadows. This time, however, one of the locations will end up with two concealed cards, as we're instructed to place them only at non-central locations that have a target. The agenda deck also resets and another two doom is placed onto it, so now we have another four rounds to find her again. Also, we lose all of our clues, but each location is restocked up to its clue value. As we travel from building to building, we'll have to be on the lookout for these guys:  But at least we can see them coming. Searching for hidden enemies, it turns out, is dangerous work...  ...and La Chica Roja has a few tricks of her own.  Tracking her down a second time, she seems a bit put out... "You again?" she says dismissively. "Don't you have anything better to do? I'm quite busy, as you can see." Once again, we place the resource target onto the scenario card, reset the act and agenda decks, then discard our clues and restock the locations. If the agenda ever advances, she beats us to the target and the resource token gets placed onto her card instead, but if we manage to beat her three times without her getting any pieces then we get our chance to claim a Key (I realized while writing this report that this isn't the only way to get the Key, but it is the only way to get some bonus XP). La Chica Roja paces around us in a slow circle as we claim her prize. "You're good," she concedes with a playful smirk. "But you're workin' for the wrong people. You know that, right?" We tell her to stand down and turn herself over for questioning. She steps into the shadows, obscuring her face, but we can tell from her tone that she hasn't stopped smiling. We expect she's about to make another flashy exit, but instead she surprises us by reaching out and flicking the lamp switch next to her, bathing the room in an orange glow. She stands exposed in the lamplight. "Bien entonces, la cana. Let's talk, gumshoe." We tell her we're not with the police, but she's surmised as much already. "You seem to know who I work for, don't you? Well then, surely you must know there are two of us operating in Buenos Aires. Why aren't you after the other guy?" Our confusion must be obvious. After a beat, La Chica Roja grins. "Oh, so that's how it is. You, my friends, have outdated information." We ask if she is using the stolen art pieces to assemble a Key, as the Foundation's intel suggested. "Key? Oh, I see. You call them Keys. Well, yes, that much is true. But you're missing the why." She explains that the other guy is known only as The Sanguine Watcher, and he already has a few pieces. She says he thrives on malice and cruelty, and he would use the artifact for human experimentation and other creepy stuff. She really seems to hate him, and when she says she only came here to stop him it's easy enough to believe. We ask how she plans to do that exactly, and she replies that she didn't have a chance on her own. But working together, there may be a way. "He's got all these rituals tainting the city—including the one protecting his life. Gruesome stuff. Pulls out his own organs and hides them so he can't be killed. We find 'em, I guarantee he'll turn rabbit." So, we've teamed up with a master thief to take down an insane psychopath with a fondness for self-mutilation. Just another day at the Foundation...  The act and agenda decks have been replaced with this single agenda, and The Sanguine Watcher spawns at a random location with a target. The other targets are then removed from the map, and the Apportioned Ka enters the shadows, distributing a concealed card at each of the five non-central locations that don't have a target.  And now that we're working together, LCR is with us. Her card is flipped over and one investigator can choose to take control of her.  We can either strike The Sanguine Watcher directly or go after his, uh, external organs. Either way, once we cut him down we can loot the remaining art pieces and assemble them all into a brand new Key. Strategy: So, beating La Chica Roja to the punch three times in a row is really quite difficult, for a couple of reasons. The first is that if you try to use the action on each location to check for her minicard before exposing it (to avoid taking up to five attacks from her each cycle) you simply won't have enough time unless you get really lucky. And the second reason is that if you just go face-first every time and don't bother checking the locations you're going to take a lot of damage and horror from her attacks, like seriously a lot, which really adds up with all the other sources of damage and horror in this scenario. But, since relying on luck is never a good idea, we're going to take the face-first option. It is, after all, what we've prepared for with our upgrades. Doing it like this means we don't really care about clues too, so we don't have to waste actions gathering them, though Joe will still sometimes grab a clue because he can then use Alice Luxley to expose a concealed card. They're also relevant for Logical Reasoning and "I've got a plan!", but they're still mostly only worth grabbing during the third cycle because he loses them at the end of the first two. Still on the topic of clues, there is one treachery worth highlighting here:  If Calling Card appears during the first cycle its only valid target is the starting location, which has a shroud of four. Spending an action to move there specifically to remove it is not worth doing, especially since Joe would have to spend some resources (card commits) to do so. And since we don't really care about clues it's also not really worth spending a Realitycollapser shot on. We'll sometimes make use of clues before it appears, but once it does we'll leave it up for the rest of the game. This has two main impacts: 1) we can't spend clues to make LCR's parley action easier, and 2) we always lose cards to Pinch in Reality.  We also can't use the clue abilities on locations, but, as mentioned, we won't be doing that anyway. It can still make sense to use them in the second and third cycles when there's more than one concealed card at a location, but most of them have additional costs that make it not worth it. Regarding the token bag, the Tablet token is interesting here. There are four of them in the bag now, and they're -2 tokens with an ability which cancels the icons and effects of any committed cards. We're actually quite well-equipped to deal with this, because Joe has an Intellect of seven with all three of his passive boosts in play, which means he's naturally +2 or more on every investigate test on the map, so if he commits a card to cover, say, the -4 token, he'll still succeed if he draws a Tablet. Kymani with The Moon in play is similarly effective, since Disguise gives a flat +2 and having four extra -2 tokens in the bag makes his reaction ability a lot more reliable against the 3HP nightgaunt enemies (and the 4HP ones if they've been pinged by Alice Luxley).  The Cultist token (of which there are now two in the bag) is a stand-out here at -7. We will rarely try to cover it except on the most crucial tests, so its effect will trigger pretty much whenever it appears (if you fail the test by more than two, each minicard at your location and connecting locations is shuffled facedown and placed at random in the positions they were in). The way we'll handle this is to basically never end our turn or otherwise perform a test at the central location since it's connected to all of the others, but if we haven't revealed any concealed cards (through location abilities) then it doesn't matter. If we get lucky and expose LCR early in one of the cycles we won't depart from our main strategy; we won't start using the location abilities or anything because we haven't actually gained any time, we've just avoided taking some damage and horror. Also, ideally we would like to expose her on the first action of a round so that we can send her back into the shadows and start exposing cards right away while the agenda only has two doom on it. That's the only way we can actually gain time in the first half, but getting that opportunity obviously depends upon the game state at the time. During the first half of this scenario we'll be spending all of our actions on moving between locations, dealing with any nightgaunts that show up, and exposing concealed cards. Once we've made it to the interlude and The Sanguine Watcher appears, Kymani will need to evade him each turn to prevent his ability from hitting both investigators for two damage or horror, because there's a good chance they won't have much health or sanity left. LCR is great for absorbing these hits, especially if Kymani can't get to the Watcher on the turn he spawns, so she'll join whichever investigator needs the soak (her ability isn't particularly impactful). The new agenda gives us a lot of time to deal with the Watcher (our health and sanity is the real clock) and exposing the Apportioned Ka once (which hits him for half his HP) is generally worth trying since it's pretty easy for us to make up the rest of the damage. At this point in the game there may be two copies of Coterie Envoy in play though, which might limit our options. Burning him down using only our cards is very feasible anyway, so it's really just a case of looking at the board and choosing the best available option.  How it went: Joe's opening hand contained a Shotcaster and Motivational Speech, but no allies. Kymani ended up with Leo, LCC, Stealth, Pay Day, and Faustian Bargain. Joe went first, playing No Stone Unturned to find Milan, which he then played using MS. He took a Shortcut to the Cementario de la Recoleta and performed an investigate at +3 to expose a decoy, thus taking the first attack of the game from LCR. Kymani played Leo (with TLoP) and the LCC, then moved to Palacio Errazuriz and performed an evade at +3 to expose another decoy. Sigh, never lucky. They grabbed a Disguise from their LCC search and then played Pay Day for four resources. On round two (3/7 doom) Joe drew a Bound Nightgaunt and Kymani drew Figures in the Dark, taking another hit from LCR (we always take the damage and horror from any treachery that gives us a choice).  Kymani moved to the Cementario, played Stealth, engaged the enemy, then evaded it with Calculated Reasoning to cover every token except the Cultist, so of course they pulled a Cultist token. On Joe's turn, he played Preposterous Sketches, drawing Luxley, PMP, and a Magnifying Glass, which he immediately played. He also played Luxley, then performed an investigate at +5, drawing another Cultist token. The idea was to ping the nightgaunt for one so we could reset The Last Blossom since Kymani was about to take two horror during the enemy phase (resetting TLB is worth doing at every opportunity here anyway). On round three (4/7 doom) Joe drew a Pinch in Reality (discarding three cards) and Kymani drew Heavy Rain, which they would have committed something to in an attempt to mitigate a big horror hit, but they had drawn Lonnie Ritter during the previous turn's upkeep so it suddenly became a lot less pressing to avoid the horror. In the event, they drew a 0 token so they dodged it anyway.  On Joe's turn, he played Preposterous Sketches (TTI, MS, Luxley) then moved twice to Teatro Colon. I know I just said it was worth resetting TLB at every opportunity, but I'd already wasted one action trying to do it and I judged it wasn't worth spending another (especially considering the Lonnie draw). On Kymani's turn, they evaded the nightgaunt at +2 then failed to dispose of it with Stealth. They played Disguise and then moved twice to Banco de la Provincia since it was more important to keep exposing cards than to finish off the enemy (once we finished this cycle we would want to return to its location anyway). On round four (5/7 doom) Joe drew the other Pinch in Reality (discarding another three cards), and Kymani drew an Undercover, passing it with an Elder Sign pull.  Kymani went first, playing Lonnie and then using Stealth to uncover another decoy. They then moved to The Cabildo and used Disguise to uncover... yes, another decoy (that's 4/6 if anyone's counting). Their last action was to play Faustian Bargain for five resources. On Joe's turn, he played Death, then grabbed a clue with Working a Hunch, using Luxley to expose... La Chica Roja! He spent a clue and committed Perception to perform her parley action at +5, which succeeded (pulling the -5). Advancing the act, I placed two concealed cards at the Palacio since it had the lowest shroud value. Joe drew a card with his last action since the Bound Nightgaunt would enter the central location later this round. During upkeep, Joe drew his Dynamite Blast and Kymani drew their Ornate Bow. On round five (3/7 doom) Joe pulled an On Wings of Darkness, depositing him at the Avenida de Mayo with our friend the Bound Nightgaunt. Kymani pulled a Seeing Shadows.  It was finally time to deal with this pesky nightgaunt. Kymani played their Ornate Bow then failed to expose a card at their location using Stealth (taking one horror from Seeing Shadows), then they moved to the Avenida and took a slightly risky shot at +4, which killed it. On round six (4/7 doom) Joe drew Calling Card, marking the end of us spending any more clues. Kymani used The Eye of Ravens on another Heavy Rain to avoid taking horror, then on round seven (5/7 doom) they had to spend their whole turn discarding two copies of Seeing Shadows (it wasn't really practical to keep both of them for the rest of the game, despite them finding and playing their Bulletproof Vest during their turn on the previous round). Joe's first action of round eight (6/7 doom) exposed LCR using Scene of the Crime (it took another four decoys to find her) and he sent her back into the shadows with a +4 commit on her parley test. At this point, Kymani had three damage and five horror (Joe was on 6D/4H), with Leo and Lonnie having one and two points of horror respectively. Their Bulletproof Vest had been in play for two rounds now but they hadn't been able to find a source of damage only, and any single point of horror would have defeated Lonnie, which is something I wanted to avoid until I could find the second copy since Kymani was likely to take more horror trying to expose LCR for the third time. Consequently, on their turn for this round they reloaded their bow and drew three cards, finding Panic on the third draw (the first one turned up a Honed Instinct so they were safe from Agent Fletcher). Also, surprisingly, we hadn't found any other enemies since that first Bound Nightgaunt so we hadn't been able to reset The Last Blossom. On round nine (3/7) Joe drew and passed an Outsmarted, then Kymani drew Knives in the Dark. Perfect!  Kymani drew a card (Sneak By) to use Leo's action for the turn, then they used Stealth to expose a decoy, defeating Leo with LCR's attack and putting two damage onto the BPV. Lonnie then healed one damage from it and one horror from herself, then Kymani moved to The Cabildo and used their Ornate Bow to expose the concealed card, committing the SB to fight at +6; their deck size was pretty small by now, and I wanted a big success so that LCC could find the other copy of Leo. It worked, pulling him from a four-point search, but Kymani got more than they bargained for, finding La Chica Roja as well. They played Honed Instinct (which, importantly, doesn't cost an action for Panic) and evaded LCR with Disguise at +2, then they played Leo. Since it was unwise to draw for their last action and Panic now prevented them from gaining a resource, they simply skipped their fifth action for the turn. And at the end of their turn, they successfully discarded Knives in the Dark. Joe played Scene of the Crime to grab a clue now that he would be able to keep them, then he moved into The Cabildo and gained a resource (since he had both DB and a Shotcaster in hand). During upkeep, LCR engaged him. On round ten (4/7 doom) Joe pulled a Figures in the Dark, which surged into our first Coterie Envoy, and Kymani pulled a Hunting Nightgaunt.  Kymani took two attempts to evade the nightgaunt (thanks to the Auto-fail token) then they discarded it with Stealth before reloading their bow and talking to LCR at +5, committing CR. It actually failed at -6 when they pulled both Curse tokens and a Tablet. Gotta say, I raised an eyebrow at that one. On Joe's turn, he tried talking to her, succeeding at +2, then when the act advanced, The Sanguine Watcher appeared at the Banco. Both investigators would be taking a hit from him this round and Joe only had 1HP to spare, but I chose to put La Chica Roja under Kymani's control because Joe had both copies of "I've had worse..." in his 7-card deck and his hunch this turn was No Stone Unturned, and Kymani didn't have as many outs (plus they'd be spending more time with the Watcher). So, Joe's remaining two actions were to grab an IHW with NSU and then lob a stick of dynamite at TSW for three damage. Then, after a minute or so of thought, I decided to play it safe by healing TSW for one damage to reset The Last Blossom. The extra one point probably wouldn't have changed our overall time to kill too much, but since both investigators were pretty ravaged at this point the extra heal might be extremely important if the game decided to pull some bullshit. On round eleven (2/11 doom) Joe drew the other Coterie Envoy and Kymani drew the other Bound Nightgaunt. After using TLB to heal both investigators and remove Panic, Kymani evaded the nightgaunt with Disguise then discarded it with Stealth, then they moved to the Banco and evaded TSW at +4 before playing Faustian Bargain for five resources. On Joe's turn, I decided not to bother hunting down the Watcher's kidneys and stuff, so Joe moved into the Banco with Join the Caravan then played a Hyperphysical Shotcaster and blasted him twice with Railshooter attacks. On round twelve (3/11 doom) Joe took another nightgaunt taxi to the Avenida (using their second IHW to cancel the damage and horror) and Kymani found a Locked Door somewhere. They went first, evading the Watcher with Disguise at +4 and following it up with a double Sneak Attack to finish him off. Resolution 2. Our erstwhile adversary watches in grim silence as her rival is safely borne aloft on wings of darkness. "Damned things," she spits. "They'll follow whoever whistles loudest, I guess." We ponder aloud what this means for us now. With the Sanguine Watcher out of the way, will she keep her word? To our relief, she smirks and hands over the remaining pieces of the Key we'd been competing for. "This is what you’re really after, isn't it? Here. My main goal was only making sure that ojete en una nube de pedos didn't get his hands on it. I trust it in your hands." She shows us how to fit the various pieces together and, to our surprise, the result is an ornate figurine of a woman in robes. Tears, carved as thin lines like bloody scars, trail down the figure's cheeks. "The Rubicund Statuette," she reveals, "also known as the Weeping Lady." We ask what she will do now, and she responds with a tip of her hat. "Oh, I'll be around. You helped me out back there. Don't worry. I'll pay you back." With a twirl of her coat, she is gone. Joe Diamond is the bearer of The Weeping Lady. We haven't seen the last of The Sanguine Watcher. La Chica Roja is on our side. +3 Time. Time = 19.  The Weeping Lady: This is definitely one of the better Keys, and its unstable shift can actually be put to very good use in decks that want to discard their assets from play. For us, the main benefit in that regard is the flexibility it provides for dealing with the doom from Touch of the Beyond. For example, with this Key in play, Kymani could place the doom on Disguise and discard it when it's empty (nevermind that it would rarely be a valid target since Leo De Luca is always played before it). Joe is taking this one because his deck has all the clue synergy, and because we're about to lose one of our Keys and it's best if both investigators have at least one so they can deal with various effects later on. ----- 1XP (Tablet token bonus)* + 2VP (The Sanguine Watcher) + 3XP (resolution bonus) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 6XP for Joe. 8XP for Kymani. * I only realized while I was proofreading this post, but I shouldn't have gained 1XP from adding the Tablet token when there were already four in the bag here because it was the token from this scenario that brought the total up to four. I blame my terrible handwriting, and the fact that I switched to Dogs of War virtually at the last minute before the final run. ----- Opening up our Foundation-issued travel guide once again, we ponder our next move. Hmm, after all the hard work and danger we've been through recently, we could really use a break. You know what? Alaska is lovely this time of year... Destination: Anchorage. +1 Time (Expedited Ticket). Time = 20. Status Report - Zeta: Returning to our hotel just before we leave, we find our room in shambles. Rushing to the safe where we've been storing the paradimensional artifacts we haven't been carrying around, we find it empty apart from a single red card. *lays out the four Keys in order of acquisition, opens Google's random number generator and sets the max to four, crosses fingers, pushes button* The Eye of Ravens was stolen by The Claret Knight. Phew! I think I would've preferred to lose The Weeping Lady, all else being equal, but this is a fine result. You randomly choose which Coterie member you "haven't seen the last of" as the thief, and TCK is one of the better results there too, not that it matters a great deal. We can now travel to four different red locations on the map if we want to try to recover the Key, but as mentioned earlier, it's really not worth it. Upgrades Alright, full disclosure: our next scenario is going to be a freebie. Most resolutions require you to spend different amounts of time, and in the next scenario we can grab up to 5XP before resigning early, at the cost of only +1 Time. The scenario after this one will also be an XP jaunt but we'll be doing that one to completion, at least. And then, in Scenario Seven, we'll be back in the thick of it. So, for the first time this campaign we don't have to worry about purchasing upgrades strictly for the upcoming scenario. Instead, most of our choices here will be made with that later scenario in mind. Joe:  Hyperphysical Shotcaster: The Telescanner upgrade will be more useful in the scenarios after this upcoming one, but it's still handy to have here. Since it may come up at some point, here's how Telescanner works when you commit Deduction: Rules Sidebar: When you investigate with the Shotcaster's Telescanner form and commit Deduction to that test, you would be able to discover one clue at "any (other) revealed location" and one clue at your location if successful.  2 x Perception -> 2 x Perception (2): Joe's deck is fast running out of level zero cards which can be replaced by different cards by title. In fact, the only remaining such cards that will be replaced before the end of the campaign are both copies of "I've got a plan!", but since there are a few VP enemies to kill between now and Scenario Seven we'll spend the XP elsewhere. Upgrading Perception is worthwhile because Joe uses his Intellect for everything, and the extra card draw will be particularly relevant later on. Also, we can get extra value out of each copy thanks to Practice Makes Perfect. 6XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  Underworld Market: It's time for Kymani to flex—in every sense of the word—or at least it will be when we reach Scenario Seven. We're picking it up now because I wanted to swap in three level zero cards for the next scenario and Adaptable only lets you do two, so here we are. This is a very interesting card which I'll talk more about in the deck debrief post at the end, but for now I'll just go over the ten cards we're purchasing alongside it, then I'll list which ones we're actually putting into our market deck.   2 x Thieves' Kit: This card turns Kymani into a reliable cluever, and the trickle of resources it provides is quite significant. 2 x "I'll take that!": The main use for this card is to relieve some of the pressure on our action economy, especially now that we've added yet another asset. It will allow us to play the Thieves' Kit, Lucky Cigarette Case, Grappling Hook, Ornate Bow, and Bulletproof Vest without spending an action. Note that it's perfectly fine to play it when X is zero, since we generally care more about saving an action than a few resources. 2 x Hidden Pocket: Our Ornate Bow takes up two hand slots so we're going to need an extra one to be able to use our Thieves' Kit alongside it. Currently, we can only add pockets to the BPV, but that's fine for now since having the OB and TK in play at the same time is not a high priority, so we'll have time to find it. If we end up drawing both copies of Hidden Pocket we can also put both LCCs into play, which is fun but not particularly likely to happen, at least until the lategame. 1 x Contraband: Being able to increase the number of tokens on a Disguise or Thieves' Kit is situationally very useful, so one copy of this card provides some good utility. 1 x Embezzled Treasure: This is an extremely greedy card which is all but impossible to take on Hard under normal circumstances; you will pay for it (no pun intended) if you try, but we can get away with it here because the next scenario is going to be a cakewalk. We'll keep it for the following one too, so we'll be able to take its bonus resources into Scenario Seven as well. 2 x Kicking the Hornet's Nest: The next scenario has two VP enemies in its encounter deck and we want to catch both of them. The ten cards in our market deck are: 2 x Thieves' Kit, 2 x Hidden Pocket, 2 x Disguise, 1 x Contraband, 1 x Embezzled Treasure, and 2 x Pickpocketing (2).  2 x Sneak By -> 2 x Pickpocketing (2): This card can provide an absurd amount of card draw and resources in the right deck, but unfortunately we can't use it after we evade a concealed card because we haven't actually evaded an enemy. That's one reason why it hasn't been a priority for Kymani until now, but I'll go over the others in the deck debrief post so we can keep moving. Adaptable  1 x Backstab -> 1 x Refine: It's back, for the same reason we're playing Embezzled Treasure: we can get away with it. We should be able to tick another box on Honed Instinct in the next scenario and the one after. 8XP spent, 0XP left. -------------------- Scenario Five: On Thin Ice  Moments after checking into our lodge in Anchorage, we receive an unmarked package. This had better not interfere with our national park sight-seeing tour... "Agents, we have lost contact with several operatives in central Alaska in recent weeks, likely due to Coterie activity. One operative was looking into a possible lead: a lens with apparent paradimensional capabilities. Enclosed is the journal of prospector Rhett Landry, currently institutionalized at Morningside Sanatorium in Oregon. If the lens is a Key, acquire it at all costs." Signed, Commissioner Taylor. Of course. Alright, let's take a quick look at this journal... "While surveying the new branch in the mine, I found a curious lens buried in the rock. It was opaque and emanated a beguiling light. Holding it made me feel special. As if I had been chosen. Looking through it, I saw incredible plants, creatures, people, structures, in a strange otherworldly landscape. A world beyond our own. A world that should exist. A dark reflection of our own: a haven for lost objects, lost memories. The lens—the Sable Glass—is the mirror that shows the truth of this other world." Landry goes on to say that he kept looking into the glass, and he somehow called something, a creature, through and into our world. He describes how his fellow prospectors started going missing (including from memory) and when he looked into the glass again he could see them in that other world. "The creature that stalks the woods is made of nothing, and yet it is many things: constantly shifting, ever-changing. It has the traits of many animals, like a chimera from old myths. I tried to hunt it using the Sable Glass, but looking at it made my head spin. After surveying the area, I set a trap and thought I killed one of its forms: a great lupine thing that howled and dissipated into nothingness. But when I returned to camp the next day, it had struck the camp. My companions have vanished from memory and space." Well, one thing's for sure. This Sable Glass, as he calls it, is definitely a Key. His last act was apparently to return it to the location within the mine where he found it, as he believed that might somehow fix everything. Wishful thinking, of course, but at least we know where to find our next Key. I guess we could spare a few days to see if we can locate this gold mine... We start our search at Anchorage City Hall and the local library, sifting through records for prospecting permissions in the area, but we aren't able to find anything connected to Rhett Landry. After a full day of fruitless searching we return to our lodge, only to find a tall, willowy figure with a distinctive red cravat standing next to a packed sledge. It could only be Subject #33-K, aka. Thorne, from our Foundation dossier. Described as a tall, gaunt person with androgynous features—and far older than they appear to be—they are always seen wearing a red cravat around their neck, often obscuring their face, and they have a reputation for acquiring artifacts and making business deals. "Well met," the figure greets us with a self-satisfied smile. "You must be the troublemakers everyone is talking about. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm Thorne." They extend a confident hand for us to shake. "If you're here, I can only assume it is for the same reason as I. Keep a weather eye out: it's supposed to be quite cold near Fairbanks! May the best one win." Thorne winks at us, then mounts the sled. Fairbanks, eh? Was that a friendly hint, or an attempt at misdirection? After asking around, we discover that Thorne is heading into tribal territory, and you don't need a permit to prospect out there. Before chasing after them, we ask for directions from a local member of the tribe that owns the territory where we suspect the mine could be. They're wary of more meddling from outsiders, and also concerned for our safety given the recent trouble with disappearing prospectors, but we explain that we aren't looking for gold, and showing them Landry's journal seems to earn us some trust. They provide directions, and a piece of advice. "Be especially careful crossing the rivers this time of year. It's easy to lose your way, and even easier to fall through the ice. You'll catch your death out there if you aren't careful."  We begin play at Anchorage, with the three Outer Wilderness locations set-aside. When we reach Fairbanks we can then travel to one of the three Alaskan Wilderness locations.  When we find the Mountain Stream and grab its clues we can spawn the Outer Wilderness locations, one of which is our target, the Condemned Gold Mine.  We need to be at the mine in order to advance the act, which requires us to spend six clues.  Before we do this, though, we have some hunting to do.  When the first and second agendas advance, each investigator is forced to hollow an ally or item card from their hand or play area. There are actually a lot of ways our cards can get hollowed in this scenario (including by pulling a Cultist token) and we'll have to play around them as best we can to preserve our important cards. Generally, this means we'll try to keep our hand stocked with extra cards so we can sacrifice something non-critical.  As far as treacheries go, this scenario contains all of the hexes we last saw in "Dogs of War" along with a bunch that interact with concealed cards and enemies in the shadows. It also has this scenario-specific one which is cute when we're packing a Realitycollapser.  When we're ready to advance the act and recover the Sable Glass from the mine, we discover that Thorne is one step ahead of us... "Oh goodness gracious," Thorne says, emerging from the mine. "Put that down at once, you oaf! This is no way to treat guests," they snap at the guards, who lower their weapons. "You're too late, I'm afraid. Or rather, just in time, I suppose, depending on your perspective." Thorne brandishes an obsidian lens in one hand as they smirk. Remembering the Foundation dossier, we ask them if there is anything we can do to negotiate for the Key. They shake their head. "I'm afraid not, kitten. A Key in hand is worth, well, fortunes. Not that I would sell it for anything in the world." They clutch the Sable Glass in one hand as a chill wind blows. "However, there's still time to make a deal. If you weren't completely daft, you'd have noticed this entire area is in grave danger. Something truly terrible stalks these woods. The ultimate predator. In fact, it already knows we're here." "The way I see it, you can pout about not getting your prize, or you can help me track my quarry. Do that and I'll owe you a favor, to be paid at a later date. Do we have a deal?" So, now we have a choice to make. We can either accept their deal (removing one ET token from the chaos bag and adding a Tablet token, which gains us 1XP) or we can tell them to shove it and try to take the Key by force (vice versa with the tokens). Since we came here to pick the low-hanging XP fruit we're really in no condition to take on Thorne; we have enough firepower to bring down the two VP enemies we're after, but stretching it to cover another 10HP Coterie boss would be a tall order, especially with the extra hand disruption from The Sable Glass. This is what we would be taking on:  The Sable Glass is very handy in "Without a Trace" and it trivializes a particular mechanic in the finale, but we can easily make do without it. So, we'll accept their deal. "Brilliant! We shall have to pop some champagne when this is all over and done." Thorne snaps their fingers, calling their cohorts to attention. "I believe we have some work to do." All remaining copies of Conspiracy in Red and Coterie Agent are removed from the game (wherever they are), and Thorne enters play under the lead investigator's control.  So, what exactly are we up against here? A Void Chimera, you say?  "Hoo, boy, would you look at the time. We've gotta run. We have to be in San Fran by Friday." "But... our deal..." *slaps them on the back* "You got this, chief." We return to Anchorage, pack our bags, and leave. Strategy: For once, we have a pretty lenient clock since we're not aiming to finish this scenario in the usual manner. We'll still need to make efficient use of time though, because the longer we take, the more likely it is Kymani will lose their Refine or Kicking the Hornet's Nests to random hollow effects (Embezzled Treasure is safe while it's in the market deck, but it's a lower priority anyway). So, Kymani wants to get those cards into their hand as soon as possible, but they'll need to stay there for a while because, assuming we don't draw the VP enemies naturally, we'll want to play KtHN from this location:  It's also better to wait as long as possible before playing KtHN anyway (so that we're searching through a smaller deck) and while I haven't measured every encounter deck in the campaign I'm pretty sure this one is the biggest. One thing that can help with that is to make sure we clear any Coterie Agents as quickly as possible so that all of the treacheries that look for an enemy in the shadows trigger their surge effect. We could play Refine early, but with all the assets we'll want to find and put on the table it will usually be better to float as many resources as we can. In order to protect these cards while they're in hand, Kymani will need to draw even more cards (to use as sacrifices) so their most important card for this game will be their Lucky Cigarette Case (3). For the same reason, Pickpocketing (2) is one of only three cards they'll draw from their market deck, alongside Disguise to help with enemy management (neither VP enemy is elite) and the Embezzled Treasure. While Kymani is laying the groundwork to fight the VP enemies, Joe will dive straight into cluevering. We need six clues to advance the act, and we'll get exactly that many from the Isolated Road and Mountain Stream, which we have to clear anyway to find the Condemned Gold Mine and Hunter's Lodge. We can make use of Conspiracy in Red to spawn the Emissary from Yuggoth (which is another reason to clear any Coterie Agents quickly) but it gets removed from the encounter deck when the act advances, so that's the only thing stopping us from advancing as soon as we have enough clues.  Once both VP locations have been cleared, both VP enemies are dead, Refine has been played, and Embezzled Treasure has ten tokens on it, we'll head back to Anchorage and resign. How it went: The only notable card in Joe's opening hand was a Hyperphysical Shotcaster, but Kymani scored Leo, Lonnie, the Ornate Bow, and their Bulletproof Vest. On round one (4/7 doom) Joe played the Shotcaster (he did also have a Motivational Speech, so he could still play an ally if he drew one) then he moved to Fairbanks and then to the first Alaskan Wilderness location, which turned out to be the Isolated Road. Kymani drew a Pickpocketing from their market, played Leo with TLoP, then moved to Fairbanks and then to another Alaskan Wilderness location, revealing the Frozen Lake, then back to Fairbanks, then to the last wilderness location, which was, of course, the Mountain Stream. Upon entering, they tripped over a rock and took one damage (they drew the -5 token).  On round two (5/7 doom) Joe drew an Obscuring Fog, which surged into a Coterie Agent because he was at the Isolated Road (its other two concealed cards were placed at Fairbanks and the Mountain Stream). Kymani drew Conspiracy in Red, adding another doom to it.  Fortunately, Joe's hunch card for this turn was Scene of the Crime. He used it to expose a decoy, but since this location now had a shroud value of six and he had no intellect boosts there wasn't much point in staying here, so he took a Shortcut back to Fairbanks, then he moved to the Mountain Stream and performed an investigate with Eureka at +4 to discover one clue. His priority at this point was to find his allies, hence the Eureka, but it only turned up a Practice Makes Perfect. On Kymani's turn, they exposed the Coterie Agent with an evade at +4, taking care of its two doom. They then played Faustian Bargain (giving Joe four resources), followed by their Ornate Bow. On their last action, they drew a card since taking a hit from Agent Fletcher wouldn't be a problem in this scenario, and they had the bow in play to deal with him. On round three (6/7 doom) Joe drew a Ravenous Grizzly and Kymani drew a Seeing Shadows, which was basically a free pass in this game.  Kymani went first, drawing a Disguise from their market then playing their LCC and Pickpocketing. They then engaged the Grizzly and evaded it with Manual Dexterity at +5, revealing a 0 token. This triggered three draw effects, so I'll make a brief note on how the timing works.  Manual Dexterity and Lucky Cigarette Case both trigger at ST.6 (determine success/failure of skill test) while Pickpocketing triggers at ST.7 (apply skill test results). Since MD and LCC share the same timing step, we can choose which one to resolve first, and in most cases it's always better to draw before you perform a search because it means you're searching a smaller deck so you're more likely to find what you're looking for. Also, drawing first means you're less likely to draw a weakness because the deck is larger, so we'll pretty much always choose to resolve MD first. Kymani drew The Moon from MD and took Kicking the Hornet's Nest from their LCC search, then they fired their bow at the Grizzly at +3, which failed. Joe played Scene of the Crime again to grab one clue and put the three Outer Wilderness locations into play. He then moved to one of them, revealing the Forgotten Outpost. Since he was still searching for his allies, his last action was to use its ability to draw three cards (TTI, Death, and Logical Reasoning). During upkeep, he finally found his first ally: Milan. Kalko fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 2, 2023 06:47
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On round four, the first agenda advanced, forcing each investigator to discard an item or ally card from their hand or from play. I decided to discard Joe's Shotcaster in play (which he hadn't used at all) instead of Milan from his hand, which was the only other eligible target. It was costly, but Milan would have more impact on the game in the long run. Kymani discarded Grappling Hook from their hand. During the Mythos phase, Joe drew The Claret Knight, who appeared at the Frozen Lake.  I knew we hadn't seen the last of him! Luckily for us, we could just ignore him for the rest of the game since even if we drew another Coterie Agent the impact of drawing an additional encounter card from defeating it wouldn't matter too much in this game; if anything, it would actually help us since we're hunting for the two VP enemies. Kymani drew the second Seeing Shadows (another free pass) and during their turn they discovered the Condemned Gold Mine. On round five (1/6 doom) Joe drew a Paracausal Entity which Kymani couldn't really help them with since the Ravenous Grizzly was waiting in between them at the Mountain Stream (Joe was still at the Forgotten Outpost). Instead, Joe played their hunch card, NSU, taking an attack of opportunity so they could get enough resources through "I've had worse..." to play "I've got a plan!" at +6, which defeated the Entity and drew him two cards from Perception, one of which was his weakness, Drawing the Sign. His last action was to move to the Mountain Stream, engaging the Grizzly. Kymani then moved into the MS, discarded Drawing the Sign, then fired their bow at the Grizzly at +4 to kill it (Joe had health to spare in the event of a missed shot). On round six (2/6 doom) we had all the clues we needed to advance the act, but we still had work to do; we needed to clear the Isolated Road and the Hunter's Lodge for their VP, and we still had to find the two VP enemies in the encounter deck. For this reason, advancing the act is always the last thing on our shopping list because it removes all copies of Conspiracy in Red, which, as mentioned in the strategy section, is something we can use to find the Emissary from Yuggoth.  Joe went first, moving to the Isolated Road with Join the Caravan. He investigated at +4 using TTI, which succeeded, discarding the Obscuring Fog. He then performed two more investigates, grabbing three clues and a resource for the turn before taking a Shortcut back to Fairbanks, to avoid the possibility of a hazard treachery surging on the following turn. I know I said it could be beneficial for us to draw additional encounter cards, but I'd rather do that when our only remaining tasks were to find the VP enemies (plus, there is such a thing as tempting fate). On their turn, Kymani nocked another arrow, played Embezzled Treasure, then moved to the Hunter's Lodge to prepare to search for one of the VP enemies with KtHN, with their last action being to grab one resource. During upkeep, Joe drew his Dynamite Blast, but he only had two resources to his name and he still hadn't played Alice Luxley. On round seven (3/6 doom), Joe drew a Figures in the Dark which surged into a Paradigm Effacer, which was more or less fine since, being an aloof enemy, it would take it a few turns to get to the Hunter's Lodge (his destination this round).  Kymani drew a Substance Dissimulation, which ate Honed Instinct. They went first, playing Kicking the Hornet's Nest to find the Apocalyptic Presage (gaining one clue and five resources) which entered play with one damage on it.  They evaded it at +4, then shot it with the bow at +4 for three damage before playing Pay Day for four resources. Joe moved twice to the Hunter's Lodge and gained one resource. His hunch card for the turn was Working a Hunch, but I decided not to use it to preserve the clue for an Alice Luxley ping. On round eight (4/6 doom) Joe drew our first Cracking Ice, and Kymani drew a Splintered Space. They went first, resetting The Last Blossom since they had drawn Panic in the previous round's upkeep and Joe had hollowed his Logical Reasonings. They evaded the Presage at +4, drawing Honed Instinct from their LCC search and then Agent Fletcher from Pickpocketing. So, they immediately played HI to gain an action. They evaded Fletcher at +3, nocked an arrow, and shot him dead. Interestingly, Agent Fletcher has the Coterie trait.  The Eye of Ravens shifted, and Kymani drew a Paracausal Entity, which ate Sneak Attack. They then nocked another arrow and took an attack of opportunity, since the Entity would be dead on Joe's turn (it had taken one damage already from spawning at the Hunter's Lodge). Joe played Alice Luxley then investigated at +3, which succeeded. He grabbed the remaining clue along with one resource from Milan, then he killed the Entity with a ping. By doing this it meant he would be unable to play Preposterous Sketches, since I wanted this third action free in case his first investigate failed, but it was more important to ensure the Entity died since we still had the Presage and the Effacer to deal with. For his last action, he gained one resource. And speaking of the Effacer, during the enemy phase it moved into the Hunter's Lodge. On round nine (5/6 doom) Joe drew Warped Reality and Kymani drew Beyond the Pale, taking three horror. You know, it might be time for us to say goodbye to the hunter and vacate the premises...  Joe's hunch card this turn was Unsolved Case, which ruined our juicy Dynamite Blast play for this round. Joe went first, playing UC (which dropped a clue at the Condemned Gold Mine) then moving twice to the mine. Kymani shot the Presage at +4 to kill it, then they moved twice to the mine and played Disguise. During the enemy phase, the Paradigm Effacer moved into the Mountain Stream. On round ten, the second agenda advanced, eating a Magnifying Glass and the Bulletproof Vest, which I'd been saving for this effect since Kymani's opening hand. Joe drew a Matter Inversion, which powered up the Effacer, and Kymani drew another Beyond the Pale, taking one horror.  Kymani went first, reloading the bow and then playing Kicking the Hornet's nest to search a 21-card encounter deck. They found the Emissary, which is always great to see since it bypasses its concealed cards. They evaded it with Disguise at +3, then played Sneak Attack for two damage to get it out of their hand in case of another Substance Dissimulation. On Joe's turn, I decided not to advance the act even though the Emissary was now in play because if the next mythos phase gave us a Coterie Agent it would be another free pass since we could just advance right away to remove it from the game. I spent more than a few minutes trying to work out how I could deal with the Effacer, because it would move into the mine later this turn and it had lost aloof due to the Matter Inversion. I wanted to simply Dynamite Blast it away, but Joe would be one resource short of paying for it even if he spent his first two actions gaining resources. Then, I read the cards! Specifically, the Condemned Gold Mine.  Joe got to digging, but failed on his first attempt (Tablet token). On his second, he struck gold! The Effacer got blown away. On round twelve (1/5 doom) Kymani finished off the Emissary and played Refine (ticking one box on "Impulse Control"). Joe made a deal with Thorne then headed back to Anchorage. On the following round, we drew our third Cracking Ice, which hit Kymani for three damage (Joe was safe in town). Kymani moved back to Anchorage as well, and both investigators resigned. No Resolution. Well, our R&R got cut short before it even started, but at least we grew from this experience. The Void Chimera escaped. The cell made a deal with Thorne. Thorne is the bearer of The Sable Glass. +1 Time. Time = 21. Kymani will start the next scenario with five additional resources (from Embezzled Treasure). ----- 1XP (Tablet token bonus) + 1VP (Apocalyptic Presage) + 1VP (Emissary from Yuggoth) + 2VP (locations) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 5XP for Joe. 7XP for Kymani. ----- Destination: San Francisco. +1 Time. Time = 22. Visiting another Foundation sanctum, we disembark from an elevator deep underground, coming face to face with an imposing man in a well-tailored suit and black fedora. He introduces himself as one of the suits we met in London, and he leads us down a seemingly endless hallway lined with alcoves. Each one displays something different: a model of a hollow earth, a crystal skull, a map with ley lines and other unknown markings. We pause and look at a half-eaten ear of corn, still steaming. "From what I hear, that corn's been cooked to perfection for the last two decades. So's the dame who was eating it,” he says grimly. Riiight... He ushers us down a side hall and into a room full of filing cabinets, where he asks us a lengthy series of questions about our experiences thus far. After the interview is over, he admits he was skeptical about us, but he trusts Commissioner Talyor's instincts. "You've done good work so far. We have some intel and some resources that might be useful to you. Tell me what the Foundation can do for you." "Yeah, ok, you got any more of those Expedited Tickets?" Joe Diamond adds one copy of Expedited Ticket to his deck. Back at our hotel, we begin packing away our Foundation documents when a small article from the local newspaper spread out on the desk catches our attention. "New Orleans Gripped by Terror!" Three dead in nine days, and some kind of voodoo priestess is involved. Could this be Coterie activity? There's only one way to find out. Destination: New Orleans. +2 Time (1XP standalone cost converted to +1 Time). Time = 24. Status Report - Gamma: Soon after checking into our hotel in New Orleans, another report from the Foundation arrives. Now it's not just missing people, but people returning, having changed. Buildings and objects, too—replicated, but different, off, like they had been completely dismantled and then reassembled. But why? One Cultist token is added to the chaos bag. Each investigator must add one copy of the Paradimensional Understanding weakness to their deck.  Paradimensional Understanding: This weakness isn't too impactful but it will make us adjust the way we use our Keys. Joe will avoid using The Weeping Lady until either he draws this weakness or both investigators have a sacrificial asset in play, and Kymani will avoid using The Last Blossom unless there's an enemy in play with at least one damage on it, otherwise they'd have to choose The Light of Pharos (a huge yikes) because you must select an option that would change the game state, if possible. The good news though is that if we shift an Unstable Key we do get to flip it back to its Stable side. Upgrades As before, we're doing this scenario because we can extract up to 4XP for the cost of only +2 Time. It was a lot better when I originally planned this route because I thought you only had to pay the XP cost of the standalone in Time to travel there, but you do actually need to pay the regular +1 Time to travel to the node as well. Joe:  2 x Deduction -> 2 x Deduction (2): Our eyes are still set on the near future, but this card can be pretty useful in the Louisiana Bayou in conjunction with Telescanner. 4XP spent, 1XP left. Kymani:  1 x Another Day, Another Dollar: Kymani's economy is not quite where it needs to be, but this card will help it get there. It's an excellent card, since resources are always worth the most at the start of the game and you get them without having to spend an action. And now that we have Underworld Market, these extra resources will allow us to buy from it in the early game without disrupting our setup too much. I was going to save purchasing this one until after the next scenario because I knew which cards I wanted to take into Scenario Seven and the Embezzled Treasure kind of delayed the need for this, but I ended up deciding to float 2XP here anyway just in case our next adventure goes awry.  1 x Sneak Attack -> 1 x Dirty Fighting: One copy of this card makes Kymani's enemy management much more reliable. It combos very well with the Ornate Bow too, especially in the next scenario where we'll be trying to catch an aloof enemy. This card will go into the market deck to ensure we can find it within five turns, and we'll swap one copy of Pickpocketing into our main deck. 5XP spent, 2XP left. -------------------- Scenario Six: Curse of the Rougarou  Shortly after arriving in New Orleans, we ran into a fellow group of out-of-towners. They introduced themselves as Diana, Calvin, and Preston, and they said they were looking for something. They seemed like nice people, and we wished them good luck with their search. This is Arkham Horror: The Card Game's very first standalone scenario, released way back in 2016, and I had never actually played it all the way through until I began doing test runs for this campaign. I've seen it mentioned that with all the player cards available today, this standalone in particular is a lot easier than when it was first released, and when I started doing my test runs it certainly did seem very manageable. I mean, there was hardly any danger here at all. It's not like-   *makes note to keep Lonnie Ritter around for one more scenario* My first few test runs were all over the place in terms of difficulty, which I found surprising because the main variation between games comes from the locations (one of the four sets gets removed during setup and another set gets put into play as the starting set, with the remaining two entering play later). I didn't really do enough runs to get a feel for whether it really was the locations or whether I just had some run-of-the-mill bad RNG, but overall I felt it would be fine to keep our greedy cards (Refine, Embezzled Treasure) and score some extra XP for the campaign. Anyway, let's get into how it works...  We begin play at one of the four Bayou locations (in this case the Brackish Waters), with the other two locations from its set being the only other ones in play (all of the locations here enter play with their unrevealed sides face up, unlike in the image). One of those locations has two clues and gives 1VP, and the other has no clues (this same pattern is repeated across all four location sets). Our first task is to find Lady Esprit, the voodoo priestess from the newspaper article.  Once we've gathered both of the available clues, we return to the Brackish Waters and advance the act. This puts Lady Esprit into play at our location, and the other two location sets also enter play.  She claims that the Rougarou was once a man, cursed by a being known as "Shub-Niggurath" into the form of a great wolf. She believes that she can lift the Rougarou's curse from the bayou, but only if the creature is destroyed. So, our task is to hunt the Rougarou, and we'd better do it quickly because, leaving her shack, suddenly Joe doesn't feel so good...  The Rougarou himself enters play now, at any non-Bayou location.  He's quite feisty, and he will move around a lot over the course of the game. He always moves to a non-Bayou location, and each time he leaves a location he will spawn a clue on it. He will move, one location at a time, when the first two agendas advance, and also when this treachery card is drawn (of which there are five copies in the encounter deck):  The agenda movement effect uses the same wording, which means that clues will build up evenly on all of the non-Bayou locations in play (including on any VP locations we've already cleared). And, as mentioned on his card, when he takes two or more damage in a single turn he will run to the farthest location from us, which in this case can be a non-Bayou location with any number of clues. Regarding his ability which requires you to spend a clue to engage him, there is an official clarification about it: Rules Sidebar: Only the investigator engaging The Rougarou needs to be at its location. Other investigators can contribute clues from anywhere. I didn't realize this is how it worked on my first few runs, and holy poo poo does it make a difference. There is one VP enemy in the encounter deck, the Dark Young Host.  And there are a bunch of smaller enemies too.  As far as dangerous treacheries go, this scenario can dish out a surprising amount of damage and a fair amount of horror.  Bringing our TSK token bag with us is a pretty nice advantage here, as it's a fair bit easier than the standalone Hard bag.  Technically, as soon as we get the VP enemy and the three VP locations we could resign and collect our 4XP, but the only way to remove the Curse of the Rougarou weakness from Joe's deck is to kill the Rougarou, so that's what we have to do. Strategy: All four of our potential starting locations are not great places to be.  While we're at one of these Bayou locations, the Skull token is -6 instead of -3, and there are three copies of this treachery which attaches to them (and which we generally won't bother removing).  It's very taxing to pass through the Forgotten Marsh and the Cursed Shores all the time, so as a general rule we want to stay out of the Bayous and minimize our travel between the three location sets as much as possible. We will need to visit each location at least once to reveal it so that we can track the amount of clues on it properly as the Rougarou moves around (and to clear the VP ones) but since he usually runs to whichever non-Bayou location has the lowest number of clues, we can try to game his movement by keeping two locations from the same set cleared. This works best when the first and second agendas advance, since we know they force him to move, and keeping two locations clear means we can still catch him if we draw On the Prowl during the Mythos phase. Having said all that, this scenario can get very chaotic, and we'll probably end up chasing him around a lot regardless of whatever plan we try to execute; the real takeaway here is that our ability to deal damage to him efficiently depends upon recognizing and taking advantage of each window of opportunity that comes our way. And there will be times when we don't want to be anywhere near him, such as when he has Instatiable Bloodlust and both copies of Beast of the Bayou are still in the encounter deck. If his blood isn't up though, it's fine to have one investigator in range of him whenever possible so that we avoid adding an extra doom to the agenda (provided they can take the hit, of course). To state our overall strategy as succinctly as possible, we'll put enough damage onto the Rougarou so that he's one hit away from being killed, then we'll leave him alone while we clear the VP locations and deal with the Dark Young Host, then we'll finish him off and collect our XP. How it went: Joe's opening hand contained his Dynamite Blast and both copies of Motivational Speech, but no allies. Kymani got Leo and their Grappling Hook, which was good because it's great here. Kymani went first, purchasing a Hidden Pocket from their market (so that they could have the Ornate Bow in play alongside the Grappling Hook) and then moving to one of the unrevealed Riverside locations since they couldn't play assets at the Brackish Waters. They entered Audubon Park, played Leo with TLoP, then played the GH and activated it to investigate at +2, which succeeded, then they moved into Faubourg Marigny with the Hook's second action.  On his turn, Joe drew two cards (Deduction, Alice Luxley) then moved to Faubourg Marigny. On round two (1/5 doom) Joe drew The Red-Gloved Man, which was pretty awkward. Kymani drew our first Dragged Under along with our first Auto-fail token.  Kymani went first, finding and purchasing a Disguise from their market, which was exactly what we needed (things weren't so awkward now). They played it, then engaged the RGM and evaded him at +4 before moving to the Brackish Waters, taking two damage from the Dragged Under in the process. On Joe's turn, he played Alice Luxley with Motivational Speech (costing zero resources since he was at Faubourg Marigny) then he moved to Audubon Park and investigated at +5 to grab the other clue (drawing both copies of "I've had worse..." from Perception). During upkeep, Joe drew Death. On round three (2/5 doom) both investigators drew a Swamp Leech, each of which had to spawn at the Brackish Waters, engaging Kymani.  Joe went first, playing Death and moving to the Brackish Waters. We advanced the act, spawning the Rougarou at Faubourg Marigny with the RGM. Joe's last action was a very satisfying Dynamite Blast which blew the RGM away and sent the Rougarou running to one of the Wilderness locations. Before ending his turn, he used Working a Hunch to grab the clue it left at the Brackish Waters. Kymani used their Grappling Hook to move to Faubourg Marigny (neatly discarding both Leeches without them dealing any damage) where they investigated at +1. The attempt succeeded, allowing them to pick up the clue the Rougarou had just dropped. They then drew one card and played Pay Day for five resources. During upkeep, Kymani drew Lonnie and Joe drew his weakness, Drawing the Sign, which was pretty painful. He discarded his 1911s, MS, and Deduction, keeping both copies of IHW and an "I've got a plan!" On round four (3/5 doom) Joe drew On the Prowl, and I chose to return the Rougarou to Faubourg Marigny because we had a good opportunity to hit it with an "I've got a plan!" Kymani took three horror from failing Ripples on the Water but that was more or less fine since they had Lonnie in hand. Kymani went first, playing Lonnie and the Pickpocketing they'd just purchased from their market, then they engaged the Rougarou and evaded it with Disguise and MD at +6, drawing Stealth from MD. They then engaged it using their free trigger ability (the purpose behind evading it first was to deactivate Retaliate) and spent their last action playing Stealth (we were getting a lot of value out of Faubourg Marigny's cost reduction effect). On Joe's turn, he used Lady Esprit to gain two resources then he grabbed a clue with Working a Hunch and moved into FM before playing IGaP at +5 (with an Intel Report commit from Kymani) to hit the Rougarou for three damage (sending it to the Wilderness location without a clue). On round five (4/5 doom) Joe drew a Marsh Gug, spawning it at the Brackish Waters so that Kymani would be able to deal with it, and Kymani failed to avoid being Dragged Under again. They went first, moving to the BW (taking two damage from the DU), where they needed two attempts to evade the Marsh Gug. They used Pickpocketing on the successful attempt, and drew Agent Fletcher, who they failed to evade at +2 with their last action of their turn (so they took a hit from him, due to Alert).  Joe moved to the BW and grabbed a clue at +6, pinging Agent Fletcher, then they played No Stone Unturned for Kymani, which allowed them to find their Ornate Bow. During the enemy phase, Kymani took another hit from Fletcher, so they now had six damage and three horror on them (Joe had a healthy 2D/1H spread). During upkeep, Kymani drew their Bulletproof Vest, which would definitely be needed this game. On round six, the first agenda advanced. I sent the Rougarou to a New Orleans location so that it wouldn't hit us if we drew Beast of the Bayou, but we managed to dodge that bullet anyway, instead drawing Dragged Under and Insatiable Bloodlust. Kymani went first, using Stealth to evade Agent Fletcher at +4 (he wouldn't engage Joe because of his "Prey - Kymani Jones only" clause). They then moved into Faubourg Marigny and played their Bulletproof Vest and the Dirty Fighting they had purchased from their market this turn. They also played their Ornate Bow, which unfortunately discarded the Grappling Hook, but they were under too much pressure from enemies to keep waiting for an "I'll take that!" to use on the bow. Joe moved into the Forgotten Marsh (using IHW on the two damage from Dragged Under) since it was round six and we hadn't made it out of the starting locations yet, then he used his last two actions to discard Drawing the Sign. During the enemy phase, Agent Fletcher moved into FB and hit Kymani, but they took the damage on their vest and Lonnie went to work. On round seven (1/6 doom) we had another double Swamp Leech draw, which of course happened right after Kymani had to drop their Grappling Hook. Both enemies spawned at the Cursed Shores (the "I'll deal with it later" choice). Kymani dealt with Fletcher and the Gug while Joe revealed both Wilderness locations and grabbed three clues with Deduction (and drawing both copies of Milan from Perception). Then, on the following round, Kymani drew another On the Prowl (Audubon Park) which surged into another On the Prowl (the other New Orleans location) which surged into the second copy of Insatiable Bloodlust.  This was a ticking time bomb that demanded our attention right away, and Joe was the man for the job... but not this round, because he had drawn a Bog Gator and he didn't have any great prospects for dealing with it.  After much thought, I had him try to evade it with Practice Makes Perfect, which pulled the card he needed (Take the Initiative) to perform the test at +3. Unfortunately, he drew the -4 token, so his next play was to fight it at +2, which luckily succeeded, hitting it for one damage. He then used The Weeping Lady to grab a clue from the Trapper's Cabin nextdoor, enabling him to ping it to death with Alice Luxley. My thinking was that evading at +3 had a good chance of success, provided he found TTI, and it would've dealt with the gator for the rest of the game since it didn't have hunter. Going for TTI on a fight action would have resulted in a +5 attempt, but not finding TTI meant it would have a low chance of success and his only option would then have been to attempt another fight test at +2. I also wanted to preserve TWL since he hadn't drawn Paradimensional Understanding yet, but if he did he would've only lost a Magnifying Glass (and Kymani had an empty Disguise to sacrifice). The evade option was the more efficient play, but I'm still not sure it was the best one. On round nine (3/6 doom) Joe's hunch card was Unsolved Case, so it wasn't until round ten (4/6 doom) that he was finally able to do something about the Rougarou's extremely insatiable bloodlust. On this round, Kymani moved into its location (taking two damage from the Swamp Leeches), revealing Broadmoor. This allowed Joe to use Join the Caravan to move there, at which point he grabbed a clue at +5 and pinged it for one damage to remove both copies of the treachery. On round eleven (5/6 doom) Joe drew an On the Prowl, sending the Rougarou to the Trapper's Cabin. Kymani played Kicking the Hornet's Nest this turn, finding the Dark Young Host, which they dispatched with an arrow and a Sneak Attack after evading it with Disguise.  On his turn, Joe used Scene of the Crime to finish clearing Broadmoor of all its clues, then he used the Shotcaster's Telescanner mode to grab the last clue from Audubon Park. Every VP location was now cleared, and the agenda would advance next round, sending the Rougarou right back into our arms at Broadmoor. All we had to do was avoid drawing another On the Prowl, which is less likely than it sounds since all copies of it get shuffled back into the encounter deck as part of the agenda advancement. In the event, on round twelve, we didn't draw an On the Prowl, but we did draw Beast of the Bayou, so Alice and Lonnie got mauled. On their turn, Kymani played Refine, then they engaged and evaded the Rougarou. And on his turn, Joe engaged it and played "I've got a plan!", committing everything to succeed at +7 for the final four damage required to slay it. Resolution 2. The creature gives a pitiful wail as dark, miry blood oozes from its wounds. By the time its body collapses into the mud, it has transformed back into its original form—the form of a young, dark-skinned man, his expression twisted in agony. We bring the body back to Lady Esprit and she works her strange magic, removing the stain of the curse from the land. The Rougarou is destroyed, and the curse is lifted. Kymani will start the next scenario with three additional resources (from Embezzled Treasure). ----- 1VP (Dark Young Host) + 3VP (locations) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 4XP for Joe. 6XP for Kymani. Joe now has 5XP (1XP from leftover). Kymani now has 8XP (2XP from leftover). ----- Destination: London. +1 Time (Expedited Ticket). Time = 25. The number of strange occurrences around the world has been increasing at an alarming rate, and despite all of our investigations thus far we're no closer to finding their source, if such a thing even exists. We can't shake the feeling that we're running out of time, and with so many potential leads still left to explore and no way to sort the good from the bad, we've decided to put our money on Agent Ari Quinn. Arriving in London, we follow her directions to get to the town of Amesbury, and as soon as we arrive at our hotel the concierge passes us a note with an address on the other side of town. We head there immediately, only to find Agent Quinn sitting in the driver's seat of a Bentley, reading a newspaper. "Finally. Been waiting all day." We climb in, and she starts the Bentley's engine and rolls along the road to the west. A short time later, we come to a familiar sight: Stonehenge. A ring of standing stones marks the site, inside which another ring of smaller bluestones seem to serve no particular purpose whatsoever. A few tourists peruse the monument in awe, but it is otherwise quiet. We ask Agent Quinn why she wanted us to come all this way. "Strange place, is it not?" A rhetorical question—historians have long debated over the likely function of the landmark, but none know for certain. As we draw nearer, she points to the various standing stones and to the concentric ring of smaller stones inside. "Almost seems like something is missing." She heads to the center of the bluestone ring and takes out a small contraption possessing a series of lights along its surface. It lets out several beeps, rising in frequency as she reaches the very center. "This confirms my suspicions," she says under her breath, then she shows us the readings. "Found these same kind of readings in a lot of other places. Roanoke Island. Angkor. You get the idea." She stands and taps the device against the palm of her hand as she scans the stone rings. "These things you mentioned in your report, these—let us presume to call them 'extraterrestrials'—when they take something, it vanishes completely. Do you understand what this means? Everything we know, everything we can see, it's just what's left. Look at Stonehenge. We have no earthly clue what it is. Maybe that's because it's incomplete. There could have been dozens of other structures erected right where we stand and humanity would never know." She paces back and forth, agitated. "This is my life's work. I've studied these kinds of events for over a decade. Paranormal disappearances. Dead civilizations. Bloody hell, I'm fluent in a dozen dead languages. I've always assumed these events are a small slice of pie missing from the greater whole. But what if we're only seeing what's left—the tiny slice of pie these creatures haven't stolen?" Suddenly, what Agent Quinn just said makes us snap to attention. Quinn is an expert in long-dead languages and ancient civilizations. We ask her if she'd be willing to help us with a related matter far from Amesbury. "If it will help me get to the bottom of this, then yes," she replies eagerly. "What can I do for you?" With bated breath, we tell her it might require her to not inform the Foundation of her next whereabouts. She takes a moment to consider the implications, then nods, resolute. We hand her the whistle Aliki gave us and tell her that it belonged to a Coterie member who seemed to know only Latin, ancient Greek, and other languages we couldn't decipher. She studies it for a long while, turning it over and over in her hand. "A white raven," she murmurs to herself. "The Greek myths tell us that ravens were the messengers of the Gods; Apollo in particular. They were once all white, but when Apollo sent one to spy on his lover, Coronis, he learned of his lover's infidelity and scorched the raven's wings black in anger." We ask Agent Quinn if there is any place in the world one might associate with Apollo or his raven. "There are temples in Rome dedicated to the god Apollo," she says. "Apollo Sosianus and Apollo Palatinus. Let me know if you head there. I'll meet you." The cell is off-mission. Each investigator earns 1XP, as they gain insight into the strange happenings around the world. Joe now has 6XP. Kymani now has 9XP. +1 Time. Time = 26. Destination: Rome. +1 Time. Time = 27. Ah, Rome, we meet again. "This is… possibly one of the worst ideas I've ever had." The ruins of numerous temples litter the area around the Palatine Hill, once marvels of luminous white marble, decorated with intricate reliefs of ivory and delicately carved statues; now nothing more than broken vestiges and stone foundations half-buried along the hill. We try our best to reassure Quinn, but she is right—this could easily be a wild goose chase or a trap. Commissioner Taylor would certainly not be happy if she knew her agents were attempting to parley with a member of the Red Coterie. But we suspect that Aliki knows more about the strange disappearances happening all over the globe than we do, and perhaps that is more important than the mission Taylor gave us. Quinn sighs and nods in agreement. "I know. That's why I'm here. But still…" She stops in her tracks, spotting something in the distance, and begins walking in that direction. "There—those are the ruins of the palace of Caesar Augustus, who was thought to have built the Temple of Apollo Palatinus nearby. Most scholars believe these nearby ruins to belong to the Temple of Jupiter Victor, but I wager they are in fact Apollo's." We pull out the white raven whistle Aliki gave us. Now is as good a time as any to give it a shot. Worst case scenario, we've simply wasted our time, and Quinn's. We blow the whistle, and what emerges is a paradoxically distant sound, a warbling trill not unlike the shrill sound that has haunted us ever since Kathmandu. The wind picks up, sudden and chill. Quinn pulls her coat over her torso with a shudder. Then, arriving just as swiftly as the bitter wind, we spy her. Aliki Zoni Uperetria stands just over the ancient temple ruins, her red sash a splash of flowing color in the harsh breeze. As the wind and the discordant whistle both fade, her hair settles over her face, obscuring her expression. "I hope you know what you're doing," Quinn murmurs under her breath as she approaches the haunting figure with much trepidation. The girl in the scarlet sash speaks a single word in ancient Egyptian, stopping Quinn in her tracks. The agent replies in kind, causing Aliki's head to tilt to the side in curious understanding. Slowly, bit by bit, the two begin to converse, changing languages every other sentence like two students testing one another. We watch in awe as the two juggle ancient languages as easily as breathing. Finally, Quinn addresses us. "You were right. She's searching for a place where…" Aliki speaks again, and Quinn translates. "The entities you've encountered. She thinks the things they take—no, devour—she thinks they end up somewhere else. She's searching for the place where they go." We ask Quinn if she can think of any place on Earth that might be a hotspot for such activity. "There is one that I can think of. The Bermuda Triangle, otherwise known as The Devil's Triangle, in the Atlantic. We've tried our best to keep it under wraps, but a lot of ships and even some aircraft have gone missing in that area. A few of those incidents are on my list of memory anomalies, as well. Could be some kind of... gateway." We tell her to ask Aliki why she is looking for this place, and the two begin conversing again. "She says that she thinks some of the Coterie were—" She pauses for a moment, struggling with the translation. "—taken? But how could that be? Our records indicate they're accounted for. At least, the ones we know about." We consider all that we've seen, a nauseous feeling setting in. Is it possible for both to be true? Is it possible some in the Coterie are not what they seem? We approach and ask Aliki if she would like to travel with us to this gateway, if it exists. Quinn tentatively translates our request, and the mysterious figure nods in response. We lift the raven whistle and say that we will summon her when we're ready. This time, Aliki nods without even waiting for Quinn's translation. We catch just a glimpse of piercing red eyes, framed with heavy bangs, as the wind picks up again and sends her hair aflutter. A moment later, Aliki Uperetria is gone, wisped along with the wind itself. We ask Quinn if she'll stick with us a little longer. "I'm not going to lie, this terrifies me," she says in a small voice, "but I think we are on to something here. Yes. I will see this through with you to the very end. I just hope..." she quivers and averts her gaze. "I just hope I am still remembered when this is done." The cell may now travel to the Bermuda Triangle by embarking from Ybor City, San Juan, or Bermuda, at the cost of one Time. Right, now that all that's out of the way, let's go rob a casino. Destination: Monte Carlo. +4 Time (3XP standalone cost converted to +3 Time). Time = 31. Upgrades Joe:  2 x "I've got a plan!" -> 2 x Grisly Totem (3): In hindsight, it probably would have been better to grab Relic Hunter instead of the 2 x Perception (2) so that we could play both Grisly Totems here, but the Perceptions did at least do something in the previous two scenarios and we would have picked them up after this one anyway. The important thing is that we'll be able to play both of them in the scenario after this one, which is of course going to be "Without a Trace", as card draw is one of the ways Joe will mitigate the effects of his whole deck getting hollowed. And the skill boosts will also come in very handy there. But that's for later. For now, Grisly Totem (3) is honestly still one of the strongest cards in the Seeker pool, though it doesn't get much fanfare these days. To understand how powerful its skill boost effect is, take a look at any of the plots I've included and you'll immediately see that not all +1 boosts are equal. In the next scenario, for example, the difference between +2 and +3 is only 10%, but going from +3 to +4 is a massive 36% jump. The XP3 version now lets you draw a card if you succeed, and since Joe doesn't fail many Intellect tests it essentially allows him to draw an extra card every turn (and cards help you pass tests, compounding its ability to help you win the game). Its skill boost effect will also be very valuable in the next scenario for performing some critical non-Intellect scenario tests. Its only downside is its cost, and while it is replacing a card that costs the same amount, "I've got a plan!" is generally kept in hand until needed in the mid-to-late game, whereas Grisly Totem (3) wants to hit the table as soon as possible so it conflicts with the other assets in our setup suite. This is a pretty significant disadvantage considering our economic package, but it's such a good card that it still makes sense to take it. And the final note I'll make is that while the next scenario does have a couple of elites we need to kill, they are in fact the only enemies we will actually be killing. Joe's sidearm offers more than enough firepower to supplement Kymani's bow, so "I've got a plan!" won't be missed. 6XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  1 x Refine -> 1 x Honed Instinct: Spending 1XP to fill the last checkbox for the Impulse Control upgrade allows us to add a third copy to the deck, and it's also a minor economic upgrade since it now costs zero resources. Being able to gain an extra action virtually any time we need one is very useful, so we can easily justify running three copies of this card.  2 x Lonnie Ritter -> 2 x Lola Santiago: It may seem strange that we've waited until Scenario Seven to grab our second passive Agility boost, but up until now we've been upgrading specifically for the scenario at hand (well, except for the last two, but we wanted Lonnie for Curse of the Rougarou so the strategy holds for this particular slot) and if we drill down into the nature of the boosts currently available to Kymani, the Ornate Bow has a built-in +2 for fighting, Disguise has +2 for evading, Dirty Fighting boosts both of those actions, and their reaction ability helps fuel deep LCC searches. The one thing they don't have a specific boost for is investigating, but then up until this point in the campaign they've hardly performed any investigate tests. That's about to change, because the Défis de la Roulette is a clue rich environment. Kymani will play their Thieves' Kit for the first time, so the additional bonus Agility from Lola will be crucial for realizing the full potential of Leo De Luca. Of course, having said all that, Lola makes every Agility test Kymani performs better (and her Intellect boost is great for their reaction ability) and she would've been useful right from Scenario One, but we've been prioritizing utility and, in particular, survivability over raw test performance. Extra Agility does help with survivability, but it doesn't contribute much in that regard in the two scenarios so far where it's mattered most, "Dead Heat" and "Sanguine Shadows." And while the upcoming "Without a Trace" is perhaps the greatest survivability challenge in the entire campaign, raw test performance will actually matter more, so Lola is the better pick over Lonnie for that scenario. But more about that when we get there. ...or maybe just a bit more about it now. The extra stats from Lola have an indirect effect on our action economy; each test you don't have to repeat because you failed is an action saved, so she makes almost everything Kymani does slightly more efficient. So far, this hasn't been a major concern because they've been able to perform most of their important tests with a high chance of success, but in "Without a Trace" it will start to matter a great deal because its token bag can get utterly ridiculous. The last comment I'll make here is that we won't be using Lola's free trigger ability very much because Kymani simply won't be able to afford it, at least until the late game.  1 x Embezzled Treasure -> 1 x Stylish Coat: I like this card but I'm not yet convinced it can justify a slot purely as a resource generator. But as a resource generator plus a second target for Hidden Pocket to enable us to have the Ornate Bow and a Thieves' Kit in play at the same time? I think that gets it across the line. Another thing in its favour is that the second part of the next scenario is possibly the longest one in the entire game so it has plenty of time to pay itself off, and we have ample other resource generators to use in combination with it (primarily the Thieves' Kit). Our second copy of Pickpocketing (2) will return to the market deck to replace the Embezzled Treasure.  1 x Sneak Attack -> 1 x Fence: Yes, we're adding yet another asset to Kymani's deck. This one proved itself in testing, as the greater cost for playing an asset is often the action it takes rather than the resources, and with our Underworld Market providing easy access to Disguise, Thieves' Kit, and Dirty Fighting, we have no shortage of targets for it (not to mention Pay Day from our main deck). Adaptable  2 x Kicking the Hornet's Nest -> 2 x Pilfer: Clue rich environment. Nuff said. 9XP spent, 0XP left. Kalko fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Oct 3, 2023 |
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Scenario Seven: Fortune and Folly MAN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING TWICE MINUTES AFTER WINNING BIG! This sensational headline is what first grabbed our attention. We might have written it off as just an extraordinary and unlikely event exaggerated to sell papers, if it weren't for the other stories that followed, all centering around the same place: a casino in Monte Carlo called Défis de la Roulette. In addition to the unlucky patron being struck down mere moments after leaving the casino with his winnings, others have also met grisly yet improbable fates either within or nearby. Upon inquiring further, it seems that this casino appeared quickly and unexpectedly, and the authorities in Monaco have been suspiciously tight-lipped about where exactly it came from and who owns it. Since its opening, the casino has been a magnet for the unnatural and implausible. The more we learn, the more it seems worth at least taking a look to determine whether these events are simply coincidence, or the result of something much more sinister. Our Foundation sources have provided the name of a contact at Défis de la Roulette: Isamara Ordoñez. Isamara is not just an employee there, she is the "Flor de Nicaragua," a singer whose performances have become a major draw for the casino. She has reputedly reached out to various parties for help over the course of the past month, concerned with some of the events she has witnessed behind the scenes. The Foundation has reason to believe a Key may be involved in these strange events. Arriving at the casino, we find a table in the lounge and wait for an opportune moment to attract her attention. Only a few minutes later, a woman in a striking red dress takes the stage. Her performance is so captivating that she is already leaving the stage before we remember why we're here. There is no doubt that she is the one we're looking for. As she glances at the crowd, we give a small wave. At first, she appears to take little notice, but, after a moment, she approaches our table and sits down. A casual smile adorns her face, but her words are sharp and pointed. "If you were sent by Them, it's not safe to talk here. Meet me in an hour." She hands us a card with the address of a nearby cafe. She then stands, smoothing out her dress. "Thank you so much for the kind words about my performance!" she says for the benefit of anyone nearby. "Hope to see you again soon!" --- Isamara is wearing a long overcoat of the darkest blue when we meet, her wavy brown hair partially hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Clearly, she is worried about someone recognizing her. "You're right to be suspicious about what's happening at Défis. On the surface, it's a casino like any other. But there's more going on than anyone could guess. Behind the scenes, a cult called the Fortune's Chosen are the ones that really run the show. They are deadly and dangerous. Anyone who has gotten too close to the truth or crossed the casino in some way has met a horrible fate." We ask about the casino owner, and how involved he is with this cult. Isamara gives a mirthless smile. "Abarran? He is their leader. Not just that, he is the worst of them all. He brought the casino here, but more importantly, he brought the Wellspring." Isamara explains that the vault of the casino holds a strange and powerful relic of mysterious origin. It is this relic that is responsible for the unlikely events that seem to pop up around the casino. This item is known as the Wellspring of Fortune, and it has the power to manipulate probability and luck. Abarran guards it jealously, as whoever possesses the Wellspring is able to turn fortune to their cause, no matter how selfish and destructive that cause may be. Over time, he has created the loyal cadre of the Fortune's Chosen by granting them some measure of the benefits of the Wellspring, and they have come to revere it almost as a god. "Abarran trusts me for some reason, and he's even offered me to join. I think he views me as a potential asset," Isamara mutters. We ask her what she would have us do. "Steal the Wellspring. Take it far away from here. I don't know how to say it more plainly. As long as it is in Abarran's grasp, he will use it to aggrandize himself. Even worse, I fear that the longer its powers are used, the greater the chance of harm coming to those in the casino. Who knows what seemingly impossible catastrophes it may summon if it is not removed?" Her words seem not so much a plea for help as a call to action. We find ourselves agreeing to the task almost without conscious thought. As we move to stand, she stops us with her hand. "One last thing: do not underestimate Abarran. He is a dangerous man. He puts on a face of civility to the world, but underneath that mask there is a barely contained anger that can explode if he feels his prize is threatened. I've seen his temper, and I don't doubt it could drive him to tear a man limb from limb with his bare hands if he felt he had the cause." And with that lovely thought fresh in our minds, we begin planning a heist with the highest of stakes. ----- Fortune and Folly is a standalone scenario, but it was developed alongside The Scarlet Keys and it fits seamlessly into the campaign. We're stopping here on the way to the Bermuda Triangle because The Wellspring of Fortune is a good Key (especially in our penultimate scenario) but mostly because the casino offers an incredible bounty of 10XP. Claiming all of it will take meticulous planning, hard work, and maybe a little bit of luck, as the Défis de la Roulette has an army of well-trained staff, formidable physical security, and a reality-warping paradimensional artifact on its side. But we have Kymani Jones.  This scenario is played in two parts: The Stakeout, and The Heist. In the first part, we're able to move about the public spaces of the casino, and there are a number of tasks we can attempt to make the actual heist part easier. The location guide shows Patrol routes because most of the enemies here have the Patrol keyword, which is similar to Hunter; they move during the same step in the enemy phase, in accordance with the instructions on their card. In this case, each unengaged enemy will move one location clockwise or counterclockwise.  Each card in this scenario also has a game icon in its top left corner. Some encounter cards will instruct us to discard cards from the encounter deck and "check their game icons", which means we discard the specified number of cards and take note of their suit, value, and colour (J, Q, and K count as 10 for determining numerical value). If we discard a card that has no game icons (say, a Coterie enemy we haven't seen the last of) we set it aside and discard an additional card, then after checking the icons we discard that card. During the Stakeout, the only cards which require us to check game icons will be the location cards representing casino games.  During setup, each investigator places one doom token on their card to represent their "alarm level" (it doesn't count as actual doom). Various actions and decisions during the heist will raise each investigator's alarm level, and there are a few effects which can lower it too. A high alarm level means the casino is onto us, which will make the heist harder to pull off. Alarm level cannot be reduced below one or raised above ten.  During setup, each investigator chooses a Role story asset and puts it into play, with its Unpracticed side faceup.  One note about hyperlinks here: there won't be many, because ArkhamDB only has a few cards from Fortune and Folly in its database. ----- The Stakeout A few days later, we meet with Isamara again to discuss our plan for staking out the casino in advance of the heist. She explains what we need to look for, warning us that we won't have time to accomplish everything. Of course, we'll do our best to prove her wrong on that count.  High rollers are held in high regard. If we throw enough money around, it will open up options during the heist.  During the heist, this allows us to "deliver a package" by searching our deck for an item or ally asset and attaching it to the vault. When we get there, as an action, we can put the asset into play. Obtaining a uniform from one of the casino employees could go a long way toward allowing us to pass by unnoticed.  During setup, a Casino Guard is spawned at the Roulette Wheel with the above story card attached. Stealing a uniform allows us to perform another task during the heist. Isamara is very invested in the heist, but she is also understandably concerned about getting directly involved. Perhaps we can change her mind?  During setup, Isamara is spawned at the Baccarat Table. If we can convince her to take part in the heist, she will prove very useful. The more money we win, the greater the chance that the casino will have to roll out cash carts for the busy night of the heist. These carts happen to have enough space inside for a person to hide...  When the game ends, if we have at least twenty resources between both investigators, the Cash Cart will be spawned at the High Roller's Table during the heist. Somewhere in the casino is a major vent that runs from the public areas directly to the employee areas, bypassing the normal employee entrance.  If we can find this vent, it will provide a much easier way to get into the restricted area of the casino during the heist. Abarran keeps the keys to his office on his person while making his daily rounds. It's a risk, but if we can get the keys off him, we won't have to find a way into his office later.  During setup, Abarran is spawned at the High Roller's Table. If we can pinch his keys it will make it a lot easier to get into his office during the heist. There is a space within the main hall of the casino that can be used to hide assets for the heist. Any assets placed here will be immediately available when the big night begins.  Each asset we stash here gets added to our hand after our mulligan when we begin the heist. The Wellspring of Fortune feeds off and manipulates forces of fortune and luck. The more we play games of chance, the easier and faster it will be to gain control of it later.  During setup, the Wellspring of Fortune is put into play beside the act deck and fourteen clues are placed onto it. During the heist, when we bust open the vault, all of its remaining clues will be transferred to the vault location, and we can't claim our Key until we clear them all. Here's a summary of everything we need to do:  We'll want to grab as many clues as we can, because we can use them to lower our alarm level for the heist (it begins at whatever level it was at when we finished the stakeout) and we can also use them to upgrade our role cards. And, if any investigator has six or more combined damage and horror, we will "need time to rest", which means we'll start the heist with one doom on the agenda. Finally, the token bag for this scenario (both parts) is pretty nasty for any test below +4 (the red line represents the standalone bag). The Skull token's value is equal to our alarm level, and I chose three because that's about as high as it usually gets during the stakeout, but it can get a lot higher than that during the heist.  Strategy: The biggest single advantage Kymani has here is that they can use their reaction ability to dispose of all the Casino enemies without raising their alarm level. For this reason, we don't need The Muscle as one of our roles, so Kymani will take The Grifter, and Joe will take The Face.  The Grifter almost guarantees Kymani will win at the high roller's table on their first attempt (we probably won't have time for any other games) and while we don't actually need to win to cross that task off the list, the eight resources are a much bigger boon than anything the alternative role (The Thief) can offer. Joe takes The Face primarily to ensure we can recruit Isamara, as neither investigator is naturally good at Willpower tests so keeping the test difficulty at one will help quite a lot. The unpracticed version of The Face is a bit awkward to use since it can only be done at the same location as a Casino enemy, but the practiced version can be used on a target at a connecting location and it will be useful for keeping our alarm levels in check during the heist. We only have eight rounds to get all six tasks done, but if we act methodically it should be enough time. We have a rough priority list but, as always, circumstances may require us to adjust things on the fly, so we won't be completing each task in a strict order. One advantage here is that there's no fighting (unless we run into our friend from the Coterie) so Kymani won't need to play any of their combat assets. Both investigators will try to hit the ground running, ending their first turn at the Baccarat Table. On round two, Abarran will have moved to the Casino Lounge (vacating the High Roller's Table) and the Casino Guard with the target on his back will have moved to the Slot Machines (we choose one that has a clockwise patrol during setup; each Casino enemy has clockwise and counterclockwise versions). The only two tasks which are relatively time-sensitive are recruiting Isamara (before our alarm levels get raised) and winning at the HRT (before too many encounter cards either get discarded or enter play—more on this soon). To convince Isamara to join the heist we need to pass two Willpower tests with difficulty equal to the highest alarm level among investigators in play, and to have a good chance of success we will want to hit +4 on both of them. We will accomplish this by committing one or more of the following cards to each test: Take the Initiative, Logical Reasoning, Lucky Cigarette Case, Calculated Risk and/or anything else with a Willpower or wild skill icon (bonus points if we can boost one of these with Grisly Totem). Our next task will be to clear the HRT of clues so that Kymani can start throwing their money around. Joe will typically do this on his own (hopefully with Deduction (2) in hand) but, either way, the sooner it happens, the better.  The encounter deck for the stakeout contains one card of each suit for the following ranks: 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q. It's generally easiest to fulfill one of the win conditions for the game when the deck is still relatively full, and after discarding five cards you can get a feel for which win condition would be most likely by looking at the cards in the discard pile and in play to work out what's remaining in the deck. You can also wait until you mulligan before using The Grifter, so it's not always necessary to use it to win. After clearing the clues from the High Roller's Table, Joe will move across to the Casino Lounge and get to work on clearing it as well, but its shroud of five makes it a significantly harder task. Still, with tools like Scene of the Crime, Working a Hunch, The Weeping Lady, and everything else in his 28XP deck, Joe can usually make short work of it. Kymani will then find the vent, and from this point on we're only two skill tests away from completing our to-do list (cleaning out the house generally comes naturally, or it can be accomplished at the end with Faustian Bargain and/or Pay Day). Joe will go after the Casino Guard, using Take the Initiative to +4 the Combat test (or his 1911s and/or whatever else he can scrounge up) and Kymani will prepare to grab the keys from Abarran. This one sometimes takes multiple attempts, so it's best if Kymani has enough cards to commit to +5 it each time, since failing it is fairly costly. We usually won't end up with more than the eight clues from the HRT and Lounge, but if we have any time left over and need more to lower our alarm levels before the heist then we can try to grab some on the way out. Also, ideally we can stash our tarots and/or allies before resigning, but that's the absolute lowest priority thing on our list. One general note for both the Stakeout and the Heist is that having four Tablet tokens in the bag is really disruptive because they force the nearest enemy to move once towards your location. This doesn't do anything if there's an enemy at your location already (so it doesn't interfere with any evade tests) but it will often interfere with a patrol pattern or pull a Casino enemy on top of us, forcing us to either engage and evade it or move away to avoid having our alarm level raised during the enemy phase. How it went: Joe's opening hand contained Luxley, Motivational Speech, a Shotcaster, and a Magnifying Glass, and Kymani's had Leo, The Moon, LCC, and the Grappling Hook. Joe went first, playing MS to put Luxley into play, then he moved twice to the Baccarat Table, where he grabbed a clue with Working a Hunch and played the MG. Kymani purchased Disguise from their market because it might come in handy if the Coterie showed up, then they used TLoP to put Leo into play. They then played the LCC and moved twice to the Baccarat Table, where they performed Isamara's Willpower test with Calculated Risk at +6. It succeeded, so we were already half-way towards completing one of our tasks. During upkeep, Kymani drew Panic. On round two (1/8 doom) Joe drew an Inconvenient Questioning, which he passed, but it moved the Casino Guard back to the Roulette Wheel. Kymani pulled another Casino Guard (counterclockwise) which entered play at the High Roller's Table.  Joe went first again, performing Isamara's test with a TTI and LCC commit from Kymani to +6 it, which succeeded, so we crossed our first task off the list. He then used Join the Caravan to move to the HRT, where he investigated with Deduction at +5. He pulled the -4 token, so he only grabbed two clues, but he also pinged the Guard for one damage since we would now be able to use The Last Blossom to remove Panic and still be safe from Kymani's Paradimensional Understanding. Joe investigated again to grab one more clue before ending his turn. On Kymani's turn, they bought a Thieves' Kit from their market because Joe was low on resources so they might have to help with the Casino Lounge. They moved into the HRT and used TLB to remove Panic, then they played their Grappling Hook and activated it to engage the Casino Guard, investigate at +3 for the last clue (which failed), and evade at +4, which succeeded. They then used their free trigger action to engage the Guard again. During upkeep, Joe drew Death. On round three (2/8 doom) Joe drew an Obsessive Gamber and Kymani drew a House Dealer (counterclockwise), which was unfortunate since we wanted to play at the HRT this round and Kymani still had the Guard to deal with.  Joe went first (with Kymani resetting TLB by healing the Guard), playing Death. He could have played the Shotcaster instead to remove Obsessed Gambler, since it would be a source of both horror and Tablet tokens, but he would've only been able to +2 the test. His second action was an investigate at +4, which succeeded, clearing the HRT of its clues. He then moved to the Casino Lounge without using his second Join the Caravan since it could potentially show up and be useful at the end. Kymani's market revealed a Pickpocketing, but they wouldn't have had enough turns in the game to recover the cost of playing it since they probably wouldn't be doing much more evading after this turn. Their first action was to evade the Casino Guard at +4, enabling a 3-card LCC search from which they grabbed "I'll take that!" They then evaded the Guard again at +6, drawing the -2 token, which discarded it and allowed them to play their Thieves' Kit for free with ITT. They then moved to the Casino Lounge to let the House Dealer move away during the enemy phase, and their last action of the turn was to gain one resource. During upkeep, Joe drew Drawing the Sign, but he didn't have to discard anything to it. On round four (3/8 doom) both investigators drew Avarice Calls, taking two horror each.  Joe played Scene of the Crime to grab one clue, then he investigated at +2 (the Shotcaster was the only card in his hand at this point) which is generally a bad idea, but we could afford to pull one Tablet token and his Skull was still -1. Also, we were doing well but there was still a lot of time pressure to get everything done, so I judged that drawing cards to commit would have delayed things too much. He ended up pulling the Elder Sign token, so he gained a clue and put Join the Caravan on the bottom of his hunch deck. He then performed another investigate test at +2 because if it succeeded he could then clear the Lounge using The Weeping Lady (both investigators had a sacrificial asset: Magnifying Glass and Thieves' Kit, since we wouldn't need to grab any more clues after this). He pulled a Cultist token followed by a Skull, grabbing the clue and proceeding to clear the location with TWL. On Kymani's turn, they found the vent at +3, grabbing a Pay Day from LCC, then they moved back to the HRT, gained one resource, and played the PD for four more. During upkeep, Joe drew TTI, which is exactly the card he needed to take care of the Casino Guard and grab his uniform. On round five (4/8 doom) Joe drew a Security Patrol (counterclockwise) which spawned at the Lounge, and Kymani drew a Suspicious Gaze, which they passed.  Joe's target was at the HRT with Kymani, so he went first, moving there with Join the Caravan (to preserve TTI's full value). He performed the Combat test at +5 by committing the Shotcaster and TTI, and it succeeded, but the Security Patrol over at the Lounge heard the scuffle so his alarm level was raised to two. He then moved to the Baccarat Table since Abarran would move in later this round and he might be able to help Kymani swipe his keys. Kymani bought into the game at the HRT, drawing a great hand: 7, 8, 9, 10, Q. They mulliganed the Q but it turned up another Q, so they flicked a card out of their sleeve to win the hand. The dealer smelled a rat, so their alarm level was raised to two, but the Wellspring of Fortune was pleased with their actions (two clues were removed from it) and the eight resources would go a long way towards helping us clean out the house. Kymani then moved to the Baccarat Table and drew a card, with their final action being to gain a resource. On round six (5/8 doom) Joe drew Suspicious Gaze, which he of course failed, taking one damage, and Kymani drew an Arcane Spotlight. These were both excellent draws, because they were both black suits. Joe's hunch card this turn was Preposterous Sketches, so he went first since he could use it to potentially gain some commit fodder for Kymani. He drew MS, Deduction, and his 1911s, hitting one out of three eligible cards. His second action was to use The Face at +4, which succeeded, lowering his alarm level back to one (it would go up again since both investigators would be at the same location as Abarran during the enemy phase this round). His last action was to gain one resource. Kymani's first action was an attempt at swiping Abarran's keys, at +5, and it succeeded when they flipped over a House Dealer (red suit). That was our final test-based task, so we were actually well ahead of schedule (most test runs ended without any time left to stash an item) but we still needed six resources to be able to clean out the house. Kymani had drawn a Faustian Bargain from committing Manual Dexterity to the keys test, and I realized there was an opportunity here to get the rest of the resources and also remove a couple more clues from the Wellspring. It was time to play a round of baccarat!  Counting all the cards in play and in the discard pile, I knew the six cards in the encounter deck were: 7, 8, 8, J, J, J, which meant that the most likely result was a tie (I think I was wrong about this—I am not good at math on the fly) but the result was 17, so the banker won. Or, at least he would have if Kymani hadn't palmed a card (raising their alarm level to three). We now needed one more clue if we were going to have enough to lower both investigators' alarm levels to one during the checkpoint, so they activated their Grappling Hook to move to the Poker Table and investigate at +5, which succeeded. Before leaving, they also used The Last Blossom to heal, since Joe had five points of combined damage and horror. During the enemy phase, the Security Patrol at the HRT moved in, raising Joe's alarm level by another point. I had completely failed to realize that would happen, so we now needed two more clues. Joe reset The Weeping Lady during the first player window in the enemy phase, discarding his Magnifying Glass and Kymani's TK. Then, during upkeep, Agent Fletcher showed up. On round seven (6/8 doom), Joe pulled an Arcane Spotlight and Kymani drew an Obsessed Gambler. Joe went first, grabbing a clue with TWL before moving twice to the Casino Floor and stashing Death. Kymani purchased a Pickpocketing from their market to use as a commit, then they used their Grappling Hook to investigate at +5 again, which succeeded and allowed them to play Honed Instinct. Their second GH action was to evade Fletcher at +5, which also succeeded, and they then moved to the Casino Floor, where they stashed The Moon and gained two resources. On round eight (7/8 doom) Joe drew a Casino Guard and Kymani drew Inconvenient Questioning, which they managed to pass at +5 (avoiding another alarm level rise) with Intel Report, Faustian Bargain, and Deduction as commits. Joe stashed his Grisly Totem and resigned, and Kymani stashed Leo before also resigning. Resolution 2. Hopefully, what we were able to learn and accomplish tonight will be enough. We can at least rest a little easier knowing that the staff did not seem to take any special interest in us. That will make it easier to keep a low profile when the heist begins in earnest. 6/6 tasks completed. 10 clues gathered. Stash: Death, Grisly Totem, The Moon, Leo De Luca. ----- Checkpoint: The Plan With the stakeout completed, the time has come to plan out the actual heist. There are only a few days until Saturday night at Défis de la Roulette, the busiest night of the week and the perfect time to get lost in a crowd. The plan for the heist is simple, at least in theory. With the casino staff and security occupied by the Saturday crowd, we will first enter the public areas, just as we did last time. There, we will try to avoid notice as much as we can while completing any needed tasks. Once that's done, we will slip into the restricted areas in the back of the casino that are reserved for staff. This area holds the vault itself, where the Wellspring of Fortune is located. According to Isamara, the vault door is not only secured by solid steel, but also held shut by some kind of energy. If that wasn't enough, it is constantly monitored by guards, patrols, and the cultists of the Fortune's Chosen. It will take a carefully executed plan, and some improvisation, to succeed against all odds. Each investigator's role card is flipped to its Practiced side. Each investigator's alarm level is reduced to one. 10 clues spent.  ----- The Heist  Only a few hours remain until the heist begins. Isamara paces nervously in front of us before taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. She steps forward to the table where a map of the casino is displayed. With one hand, she gestures toward it. "I'm still not sure exactly how you're going to pull this off, but this is what I know..." The floor manager of the casino enjoys playing high-stakes poker. It's possible that if we sit in on a game with him and do well enough, we may be able to force him to wager his Fortune's Chosen medallion.  Kymani can throw some more money around to claim a cultist's medallion. Note that this time they do have to actually win, but we don't have to clear all the clues before we can play. Abarran keeps a sigil that allows him to tap into the arcane power of the casino and the Wellspring. It's unknown exactly where he keeps it, but it's more than likely held somewhere very close to him.  This is a particularly hard location to clear if our alarm levels are high. Let's hope Joe can keep turning on the charm... There is an employee that works as a counter that is known to be open to a little action on the side. He can provide a schematic of the ductwork that runs throughout the casino.  Ten resources is a lot, but we should be able to manage it by the time we need the schematic. Having it can help with our exit strategy once we have our prize in hand. In the back areas of the casino, there is a staging area for the guards. If we combine an employee uniform with some of the equipment found there, one of us should be able to pass as one of them.  This is the first location we will enter in the restricted area of the casino, as it's connected to the Casino Lounge via the vent we discovered. Surveillance is extensive, but the exact means of keeping an eye on the casino is unknown. If we can turn this surveillance on the security staff, it might help us observe their movement.  By the time we reach this location there should be a few casino enemies patrolling the public area, but we'll generally want to discard three cards each time we activate this to maximize our chances of success. If we're able to take control of a cash cart, we might be able to hide inside at key moments. This thing begins play at the High Roller's Table, so we can immediately push it into the Staff Access Hallway for later use. Note that a strict interpretation of the rules means we can't activate any abilities on it because it doesn't say "any investigator at its location may use these abilities" (and there's no general rule which makes that possible) but the obvious intent is for it to be used in that manner so that's what we'll do. And the same goes for the first ability on Isamara's card. The casino provides a service to the most important of patrons: securing their valuables in the vault itself. This is one potential way to get important items close to or inside the vault.  This is generally not too useful since by the time the package reaches the vault we should well and truly have found all of our important assets, but it does count as a task we need to complete to gain bonus XP, so Kymani will set things in motion on their first turn. And, finally, since we convinced Isamara to take part in the heist, she begins play at the Casino Lounge.  Kymani will take her into the restricted area, where she'll be pretty useful when we run into her boss. Kymani will usually make use of her ability as the last action of their turn, but they can get away with using it as the first since they'll still have an action left when they fail the Willpower test. She also provides some valuable additional horror soak, as this scenario can go for a very long time. Here's our new checklist:  And now it's time to put our plan into action.  As before, we need to avoid being in the same spot as a Casino enemy during the enemy phase to avoid arousing too much suspicion. If everything goes according to plan, we'll use the vent we found earlier to break into the restricted area of the casino, where we need to find the vault and access the Relic Room to claim our new Key.  Proceeding through the public areas of the casino on this busiest of nights, we reflect on our recent preparations. The staff pay us no heed, occupied as they are by the masses of patrons. We've considered every possibility, planned for every eventuality. In short, nothing could possibly— "Red 19!" The voice cuts clearly through the din, coming from the direction of the roulette tables. Then, a few moments later... "Red 19 hits again!" We hear murmurings all around us. Such an event is highly improbable. For a moment, we feel a small crackling in the air, but we shrug it off. Then, just when normalcy seems to have reasserted itself, the voice calls out once more in disbelief. "Red 19 a third time!" The crackling is unmistakable this time and begins to intensify until everything seems to blur for a moment. When our vision clears, a terrible creature beyond all imagining stands in the middle of the crowded casino, towering above the humans surrounding it. With a sinking feeling, we remember Isamara's warning that the relic's presence might invite disaster. If that wasn't bad enough, said disaster will fall on those who are not favoured by the bearer of the Wellspring.  Terrifying monsters have appeared on the casino floor, but the patrons seem to be in a daze, while the staff continue to watch for suspicious activity. Can't they see the danger they're all in?  We'll give the Roulette Wheel a wide berth as we slip into the Casino Lounge and look for that vent.  Proceeding into the Guard Room, we recall Isamara's warning that the restricted area is patrolled by members of the Fortune's Chosen cult.  We didn't see Abarran out on the floor, which means he's probably working in his office. We've learned enough about the Coterie to know that when it comes to their membership, there are good ones and bad ones, and this guy is definitely one of the bad ones.  We get to work, but a short time later... Just when it seems like things couldn't get any worse, there is a strange transformation in the atmosphere of the casino, the calm before the storm. Then, like the last gasp before drowning, the storm of misfortune breaks...  One of three possible misfortunes suddenly manifests in our vicinity. This Key really has it in for us! We press on. No amount of cultists or monsters or paradimensional chaos is going to keep us from that vault. After impersonating a guard, paying off the counter, monitoring the security system, and stealing the owner's sigil (after planting a few arrows in his chest) we finally arrive at our destination. Busting open the door, waves of blue energy crackle all around us as we finally come face to face with our prize, The Wellspring of Fortune.  However... A ragged voice gasps from behind us. "I won't let you take it!" Abarran is somehow still on his feet in the doorway behind us. Although he looks ready to collapse, his eyes burn with hatred. Before we can stop him, he slams his fist against some kind of mechanism on the wall before slumping to the ground. Large sections of solid steel ceiling begin to fall from above..." We duck and roll, narrowly avoiding serious injury (well, one of us probably does). But now we have a much bigger problem. You might even say, our final task: getting out alive.  Strategy: During setup, we place a Casino Guard (choosing a counterclockwise version) at the High Roller's Table and a Security Patrol (clockwise) at the Casino Lounge. Then, as before, Kymani will head for the HRT right away (after paying two resources to set up our package delivery) to claim the cultist medallion. It should be easy to win the game this time around with the practiced version of The Grifter since it lets you replace two cards with anything. They'll also push the Cash Cart into the Staff Access Hallway. Joe will head for the Casino Lounge and clear away its four clues, which is exactly how many we need to open the vent leading to the Guard Room. Once he moves in, the Staff Access Hallway is revealed, which spawns Abarran in his office and shuffles the Fortune's Chosen enemies into the encounter deck. Joe can start working on the clues here, but the greater priority is to clear the Security Office and Owner's Office so we can claim their VP (and the sigil). Joe will need Kymani's help to deal with Abarran, so he'll usually tackle the Security Office first.  Regarding its task, it's best to activate it when there are two or three standard Casino enemies of different ranks in play, but since we're guaranteed to draw an encounter card from it we'll generally want to do it when there's nothing else going on, which means it's often one of the last things we do before we open the vault (though if we leave it too late there may not be any enemies left in play). Before Joe heads into the Security Office he'll make a brief detour into the Staff Access Hallway to push the Cash Cart ahead of himself, and then he'll push it again into the Owner's Office so we can use it against Abarran later. After Kymani has claimed the cultist medallion, they'll swing by the Casino Lounge to pick up Isamara, then they'll join Joe in the Security Office and prepare to enter the Owner's Office (at this point they should have their Ornate Bow and hopefully Dirty Fighting in play). Around this time, the Dimensional Shambler will spawn at the Roulette Wheel (the first agenda only has a doom threshold of five) and the other monsters get shuffled into the encounter deck.  We don't care too much about playing around its ability (we'll do our actions in a different order if it prevents it from moving, but we won't generally change our plans for the turn because of it) and in some cases it's more efficient to simply let it come to us while we're doing other things. Kymani will need to keep Abarran exhausted while we fight him since damaging him while he's ready is a recipe for disaster; this makes Dynamite Blast a bit awkward to use on him, but he only takes three arrows or two plus a Railshooter blast, so he's not too hard to deal with. Similarly, the Shambler has a high fight value but both investigators are more than capable of hitting +4 or better on the few attacks it will take to down it. Having said all that, we will probably spend a good chunk of time around these two offices dealing with both threats just because of all the other stuff that might be happening around us at the same time. The next agenda's doom threshold is only three, so we'll usually end up drawing one of the Fortune's Disfavor story cards while we're hanging around the Owner's Office. Only one of them is a real problem to deal with, as the other two can be resolved by simply spending clues. And we'll have clues to spare as we only need eight to open the vault and we'll be collecting fourteen from the three restricted locations we need to clear. The final agenda has a doom threshold of twelve, which gives us a lot of time to wrap things up and prepare to leave. When we access the Relic Room we'll usually have to clear twelve clues from it before we can grab our Key, which means we'll be doing multiple investigate tests for a couple of turns, which in turn means we'll probably pull an enemy or two into the Relic Room (breaking their patrol cycle completely) thanks to the Tablet token. It's only a minor annoyance, but it will slow us down.  Once we've cleared the Relic Room, Kymani will move back to the Vault Door and activate it, hoping to get teleported to the Casino Lounge. Either way, they'll head to the Casino Floor and resign, and on that same turn Joe will grab the Wellspring and then play Join the Caravan (either from hand following a reshuffle or as the last card in his hunch deck, kept there for this purpose) to teleport to the front door and resign. How it went: Joe's opening hand contained Milan, a Shotcaster, Deduction, and the Grisly Totem and Death he stashed earlier. Kymani ended up with Lola, an LCC, and their two stashed cards, Leo and The Moon. Joe went first, playing Milan before moving to the Slot Machines and grabbing one resource (so he could play the totem next turn). Kymani bought a Pickpocketing from their market, played Leo with TLoP, sent the package on its way to the vault (choosing a House Dealer), moved to the Poker Table, and gained one resource so they would be able to buy in at the HRT next turn. On round two (1/5 doom) Joe drew a Suspicious Gaze, taking one damage, and Kymani pulled an Avarice Calls, taking two horror. Kymani went first, moving twice to reach the HRT where they pushed the Cash Cart into the Staff Access Hallway. They gained another resource, then played a hand, drawing 7, 8, 9, 9, 10. They had to grift again, but they ended up with the cultist medallion and eight resources, and two more clues were removed from the Wellspring of Fortune (it now had eight left). Joe moved twice, arriving at the Casino Lounge, then he played his Grisly Totem. On round three (2/5 doom) both investigators drew Avarice Calls (each taking two horror) so we'd somehow managed to draw all three copies of it already. Joe cleaned out the Casino Lounge with a couple of Deductions, and on the following round Kymani moved into the Guard Room, then the SAH where they pushed the Cash Cart into the Security Office. They then moved in themselves and pushed the cart into the Owner's Office ("don't mind me, sir"). They had an Obsessed Gambler in play, and at the end of their turn they pulled a Tablet token during its test. This pulled Abarran into the Security Office, which was awkward to say the least. They played Honed Instinct and evaded him at +6, drawing another HI from a MD commit. They also pulled an Ornate Bow out of Abarran's back pocket with "I'll take that!" (playing it for free since they had pulled a -1 token). From that same test, they also drew a Faustian Bargain from their LCC and the Grappling Hook from Pickpocketing, so it worked out pretty well. They could've used Isamara to exhaust him instead, but I wanted to draw some cards and hopefully put the bow into play at the same time, and yeah, that's exactly what happened. On his turn, Joe moved into the Security Office with Join the Caravan, grabbed a clue, played his Shotcaster (in Railshooter mode) and used The Face at +4, which failed when he drew the -5 token. On round five (4/5 doom) Joe drew his own Obsessed Gambler and Kymani drew a House Dealer (counterclockwise). Kymani went first, revealing a Dirty Fighting and a Thieves' Kit from their market. This was a hard choice because I wanted them to be able to help clear the Owner's Office while their alarm level was still low, but I ended up choosing the Dirty Fighting since its action compression and bonus to the bow's attacks would be important over the next few rounds. Kymani went first, evading Abarran at +4 and drawing two cards from Pickpocketing (they had played their second one at the end of their previous turn), one of which was Panic. They played DF, then shot Abarran at +7, pulling a -2 token and playing Honed Instinct. I chose Bulletproof Vest from their LCC search since I knew their next market would have a Hidden Pocket in it, and then they used TLB to remove Panic. They nocked another arrow, then shot Abarran at +7 for another three damage. On Joe's turn, he grabbed two clues with Scene of the Crime then used two Shortcuts to send both investigators into the Owner's Office (and away from Abarran and the House Dealer). He then investigated twice to grab two clues. During upkeep, Agent Fletcher appeared. On round six, the first agenda advanced, spawning the Dimensional Shambler at the Roulette Wheel and raising each investigator's alarm level to three. Joe then drew a Grip of the Beyond, and Kymani drew a Casino Guard (counterclockwise) which spawned at the Guard Office.  Joe went first, using The Face to lower his alarm level to two before switching his Shotcaster to Realitycollapser mode to remove his Obsessed Gambler at +5 (we really didn't need any extra chances to pull Tablet tokens). His last action was to play No Stone Unturned, finding Alice Luxley. On Kymani's turn, they evaded Fletcher at +4, drawing three cards (they had eleven in hand now—Pickpocketing is a hell of card, and it often gets to the point where you don't actually want to use it so you can avoid discarding, but you also can't deny that having more cards and more resources is always a good thing, but then cycling too quickly just returns all the weaknesses and hits you for a horror and can you really use all these cards you're drawing? And so on). Their second action was to play Stealth, then they used Stealth at +8, pulling an Elder Sign and well and truly taking care of Fletcher. They played a Faustian Bargain and their BPV as their last two actions. During the enemy phase, the Dimensional Shambler shambled into the Security Office. On round seven (1/3 doom) both investigators somehow pulled another Avarice Calls again (the encounter discard pile had just been shuffled back into the deck) for another two horror each. I don't even... Anyway, Kymani went first, pushing the Cash Cart back into the Security Office and nocking another arrow. It was time to slay the monster—a horror of unspeakable proportions, a creature of boundless depravity and unmitigated evil—by which I am of course referring to Abarran Arrigorriagakoa. Kymani's second action was to move back into the Security Office, where they used the Cash Cart to prevent the Dimensional Shambler from engaging them (one monster at a time, please). They reset TLB by healing one damage from Abarran, then they evaded him at +6, succeeding with an Elder Sign pull and triggering a free attack with Dirty Fighting, hitting at +7 with another Elder Sign pull, which defeated him. They played Honed Instinct, reloaded their bow, played Fence as their last action, then exhausted it to play Disguise, ending their turn with zero resources.
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Oct 2, 2023 06:47
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A few rounds later, I realized I might have misplayed that sequence. The Cash Cart's reaction ability states, "When an enemy would engage you or enter your location: Deal one damage to Cash Cart. Until the end of the round, enemies at this location cannot engage you." I had assumed it only affected an individual enemy rather than all enemies at a location. But even if it did prevent all enemies from engaging an investigator, does that mean an investigator cannot choose to engage one of those enemies? The only relevant ruling I could find was this one: Rules Sidebar: When an investigator engages an enemy, that enemy has also engaged that investigator, and vice-versa. There is no difference between engaging an enemy and being engaged by an enemy. Effects that trigger "after an enemy engages you" will trigger at the same time as effects that trigger "after you engage an enemy." This is the same rule that allows Honed Instinct's "Killer Instinct" upgrade to work when an enemy engages you, and since the word "cannot" is absolute, it would seem to indicate that an investigator can't choose to engage an enemy affected by Cash Cart. But this isn't exactly applicable to the case under discussion, because I didn't choose to use an action to engage the enemy. Moving into the location resulted in both enemies automatically engaging Kymani, presumably simultaneously. I say presumably because it isn't explicitly stated anywhere that I could find that that's how it works, but the real question is whether or not there was a point when Abarran engaged them but the Shambler hadn't yet, or, in other words, can you choose the order in which enemies engage you if they do so simultaneously? If any effects were triggered off these engagements then you can certainly choose the order to resolve them, and while there are a lot of references to the word "simultaneous" in the rules, none of them seem relevant to this question. The most relevant thing I could find was about enemy attacks during the enemy phase, where multiple enemies attack all at once but you choose the order to resolve the attacks. This was a lot of words about a question that probably has a very simple answer, and my gut feeling is that that answer is "no, there's no point in time where one enemy has engaged you but the other hasn't." So I did misplay it, but the only ramification would have been that Kymani would have had to perform an additional evade action (and not reloaded the bow or played Fence on that turn). Getting back to the game, Joe (in the Owner's Office) played Scene of the Crime to grab one clue, then investigated at +5 to grab another, pulling a Tablet token in the process. Fortunately, we were able to choose the House Dealer that was carrying our package to the vault instead of Abarran or the Shambler. Joe's final action was to play Motivational Speech to put Alice Luxley into play. During the enemy phase, our package arrived at the Vault Door, and I chose Joe's other Grisly Totem just to get it out of his deck since it would've been a dead draw; at this stage both investigators had all of their important assets either in hand or in play. During upkeep, Kymani drew their Paradimensional Understanding, flipping TLB to its unstable side. On round eight (2/3) Joe drew an Arcane Spotlight and Kymani drew Grip of the Beyond. Kymani dealt with the Shambler and picked up the last clue from the Security Office with Lola, then on the following round the second agenda advanced. We ended up in a Personal Entanglement.  Joe then pulled another Arcane Spotlight and Kymani drew a Fortune's Shield.  Joe had moved into the Security Office last turn to avoid the spotlight there (he couldn't actually move to the Vault Door because we had only completed two tasks) so now he moved back to the Owner's Office and spent two clues to resolve our Personal Entanglement. His last action was to play Unsolved Case, dropping a clue on the Baccarat Table. Kymani used Ismara's ability this turn and resisted being mesmerized at +4, then they dealt with the cultist using Stealth. On round twelve (3/12 doom) both investigators were loitering in the Counting Room. Joe drew an Obsessed Gambler, and Kymani discovered that the Red-Gloved Man had tracked us to Monte Carlo.  Joe moved into the Vault Door and lobbed a stick of dynamite back into the Counting Room, clearing the air (Kymani took it on the vest). Kymani then joined him at the vault and proceeded to take two attempts to open it (the first one ended with a Cultist token plus Auto-fail, raising their alarm level by one). They entered the Relic Room and came face to face with the Wellspring of Fortune, which dumped all of its clues into the room (we had ten in total to clear). Kymani cleared six of them on the following round with two Pilfers and two more on the one after with TK, while Joe used Realitycollapser to remove a spotlight and another problematic gambler. We did end up pulling a Guard into the Relic Room with Tablet token pulls, but it was only a minor inconvenience for Kymani to deal with. We also ended up finding a Dimensional Displacer and a Dimensional Duplicator, both of which were also not difficult to handle.  On round sixteen (7/12 doom) Joe had one card left in his hunch deck and we had completed every task. Kymani had been running for the front door for a couple of turns. On round seventeen (8/12 doom) Kymani resigned, and Joe, back in the Relic Room, grabbed the Wellspring of Fortune. With luck now on his side, a caravan pulled up outside the door and he hitched a ride with it to the Casino Floor, where he resigned. Resolution 1. There were times when we weren't sure whether we'd make it out of the casino with our skin and soul intact, but here we stand. It almost feels like a dream, but we can still hear a commotion inside. It's time to leave this place behind and make ourselves scarce. --- Together with Isamara, we examine the relic that was the source of all this trouble. Sometimes it looks just like an ordinary coin, albeit an incredibly ancient one from some long-forgotten civilization. At other times, however, the air around it distorts and warps. We also know now from experience the ways in which it can make the seemingly impossible all too real. For the first time, we see a genuine smile on Isamara's face. "I have to thank you for this. For getting it out of Abarran's hands. And getting it away from this place. I don't know what would have happened if you didn't. Tonight was bad enough, but nothing would have stopped Abarran from holding tight to his prize, no matter how many died along the way." We begin to gather our things, as Isamara does the same. We know that we will need to leave Monte Carlo immediately, as any of the Fortune's Chosen who have survived, including Abarran himself, will hunt for us and the Wellspring. "I saw him one last time, before we escaped," Isamara explains. "The look of rage in his eyes… Without his precious artifact he'll be even more unstable." We tell her that maybe he is the one that should be scared instead. After all, she successfully orchestrated his downfall from within. At our words, that same smile crosses her face once more. "I could get used to that idea." With everything ready to go and the Wellspring in hand, we leave Monte Carlo behind, hoping our luck will hold. The cell meddled in Abarran's affairs. Kymani Jones is the bearer of The Wellspring of Fortune.  The Wellspring of Fortune: This is one of the better Keys, as its effect is very useful both for eliminating the Auto-fail token and just in general, tests being something we do all the time. It's also very easy to reset with a throwaway test, and Kymani can do it without even spending an action by using Stealth. That's one reason Kymani is taking it, but the main one is that this Key will provide cover for their other two, allowing us to use The Last Blossom as much as possible in the next scenario without having to worry about Paradimensional Understanding hitting The Light of Pharos and forcing us to discard cards. Note that if we shift the Wellspring when it's unstable, we won't be able to flip it back to stable unless we actually perform a test.  Deck of Possibilities: We also grabbed another relic on the way out of the vault, and Kymani will take control of this one too. It has an interesting mix of effects, but to ensure we can take advantage of the more reactive ones we'll generally activate it in the mid-to-late stages of a scenario. If we had acquired this earlier in the campaign it would've made for a good general-use panic button but, as it stands, there's one specific moment in "Without a Trace" where we'll most likely want to try our luck, and in the finale, well, it doesn't really matter (spoiler: the finale is basically a victory lap, assuming we make it there; the only real challenge left for us in this campaign is the next scenario, and if we fail it, well, let's just say this campaign report will have something of a hollow ending). ----- 1VP (Abarran Arrigorriagakoa) + 1VP (Dimensional Shambler) + 4VP (locations) + 4XP (bonus for all eight tasks completed) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 10XP for Joe. 12XP for Kymani. ----- Destination: Bermuda. +2 Time (via London). Time = 33. The brilliant sandy beaches and azure water dazzle our senses as we arrive in Bermuda proper. Rows of brightly painted homes add to the eye-popping landscape as we travel from one corner of the island to the other, taking some time to rest and recuperate before our journey into the unknown. Each investigator may begin the next scenario with one additional card in their opening hand. Destination: ????? +1 Time. Time = 34. Upgrades Without going into too much detail about how the next scenario works, these upgrades are intended to mitigate two key aspects of it which presented the most challenge during testing: 1) the values of the Skull and Tablet tokens scale rapidly towards unmanageable levels (and the Cultist token is -6) and 2) there are numerous hollowing effects which remove cards from our hand. Joe:  Hyperphysical Shotcaster: We're rounding out our Shotcaster with its Empowered Configuration upgrade. The boost it provides will help us conserve our card commits in the early game, and in the mid-to-late game it will help delay the inevitable with regards to the Skull and Tablet tokens becoming additional Auto-fails. Sinking 10XP into two cards is a big deal, especially in the next scenario where they could be hollowed by a random effect, but we'll have a seven card mulligan to help us get one in our opening hand, where it should be safe as long as we can put it into play within the first few turns.  1 x Relic Hunter: As alluded to earlier, this will allow us to have both Grisly Totems in play at the same time, helping us to pass tests with its raw skill bonus and by committing any cards we draw to future tests.  1 x Studious: With a lack of suitable level zero slots to replace, this is the best targeted use of the leftover 3XP. It will help our mulligan, and the extra card it provides will potentially protect our more important ones from being sacrificed to a hollowing effect. 10XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  1 x Intel Report -> 1 x Unscrupulous Loan: So far, Kymani has been running a pretty lean economy; they haven't exactly been starved for resources, but they also haven't been able to float many between turns, at least in the early-to-mid stages of the game. That will need to change, as we'll be taking another upgrade which requires us to have some open resources to spend during the Mythos phase, and there are also a few effects in the next scenario which may force us to lose some resources. Regarding the exile effect on this card, we simply don't care about it. There's only one more scenario left after this one, and our 66XP deck is already more than capable of handling it.  1 x Another Day, Another Dollar: A second copy of this will be useful for the reasons stated above. Also, one flow-on effect of easing the strain on Kymani's resources is that they may be able to provide Joe with a better Faustian Bargain split.  2 x "I'll take that!" -> 2 x Sure Gamble: This card is a silver bullet for one particular treachery in the next scenario, but it's also going to allow us to pass key tests in the late game that we otherwise wouldn't be able to. It can enable some very deep LCC searches too, and since Kymani has a Willpower of three, any test using that stat will succeed no matter which token is drawn (provided it has a negative value). Its only downside is that we need to have resources available to play it during the Mythos phase. We're replacing "I'll take that!" because there won't be any humanoids to evade, and Kymani will be back on concealed card duty so they won't be doing much investigating. Adaptable  2 x Pilfer -> 2 x Decoy: There are a couple of different aloof enemies in the next scenario and it won't be uncommon to have two or more at one location. By evading two with a single action this card allows us to deal with them more efficiently, and there is also one particular location at the end where extra non-elite enemies will be harder to evade (and also pretty annoying to deal with, since we'll have significant time pressure to accomplish something at that location). Decoy also lets us evade enemies without requiring us to perform a test which we might not be able to pass, and with our extra resource generators we're more likely to be able to afford to play it. We're replacing Pilfer because, as mentioned, Kymani will be mostly dealing with concealed cards and enemies rather than investigating. 12XP spent, 0XP left. -------------------- Scenario Eight: Without a Trace  Even with the Foundation’s resources at our beck and call, it takes some finagling to charter a ship across the Devil's Triangle, especially given we have no cargo to speak of and refuse to allow any other passengers on board, for their safety. After all, if our theory is correct, this ship's destination does not exist on any map, and for all we know, it might be a one-way journey. Agent Quinn has convinced one of her colleagues to helm the ship, so as to not endanger a civilian, and together we set off for the center of the triangle, hearts in throats. "The commissioner will have gotten word by now," Quinn says, standing with us at the helm of the ship. "Probably the end of my career, I would wager." She stares off at the horizon as the sun dips just below the waves. Despite her words, her expression is steadfast, without even a hint of regret. "I just hope we find answers." We concede, with a bit of trepidation, that we almost hope we don't. The idea of ending up just like the people who have been snatched... "Well, no turning back now. Care to do the honors?" She motions toward the white raven whistle in our possession. Blowing the whistle sends a shrill, otherworldly warble across the ocean and perhaps beyond. The wind picks up, and within moments, the girl with the red sash has appeared, standing on the deck of our ship as though she had always been there. She speaks in Coptic, her words muffled by whistling wind. "She says thank you," Quinn translates, "for trusting her." We're not sure we'd go that far. But she seems to know more about where we're going than we do, and we need every bit of help we can get if we are to survive. Then, just as the wind begins to die down, Aliki Uperetria turns and points over the bow of the ship, seemingly at nothing at all but dark, choppy waves and the dim evening horizon. Clouds hang still over the Atlantic, the ocean suddenly calmer than we have ever seen it before. "Look at that," Quinn says, pointing at the surface of the water. "No fish, no waves, not even a ripple from the ship." We rush to the bow of the ship and look out into the distance. Something in the air shimmers—a slight distortion, nothing more—just a trick of the eye—and then, without a moment of warning, the ship is swallowed whole. The clouds burst. Light and color and luster overtakes us, cosmic radiance swathed in transcendental mist. The sight is marvelous and awful, mesmerizing and haunting all at once. We shut our eyes, but colours wash behind our eyelids over and over and over again. Then, finally, what feels like an eternity later, we open our eyes. The sight that greets us is unlike anything we have ever seen. Aliki was right—if the things that disappeared were taken, this is surely where they ended up: an impossibly jumbled city of twisting architecture and technology both alien and familiar, an unearthly repository for everything that has ever been forgotten and forsaken. A range of sickly purples span the sky above, and snaking throughout the tangled towers and effigies are swirling, shimmering entities of vapor and colourless radiance. Stunned into silence, we simply stare at the horrifying, awe-inspiring horizon before us, devoid of ocean, devoid of humanity, devoid of life. This is the barren truth to which our investigation has led: The Outside.  We begin play at the Court of the Outsiders, which is the only location in play.  During setup, we place a concealed card at each of its four sides, one of which is a decoy. The others correspond to three City of Remnants locations in the shadows (Left, Middle, and Right).   We also create an Otherworld Deck consisting of six more City of Remnants locations, and each time we expose a City concealed card, we replace it with the corresponding location in the shadows. We then fill the empty spot in the shadows with a location from the top of the Otherworld Deck, resolving its concealed keyword to place two concealed cards around the new location (the just-exposed card plus a decoy). In this way, we create a landscape to travel through, with each location being connected to all locations adjacent to it. Our goal is to reach the Outsider's Lair, which is always one of the bottom three cards of the deck. The other two cards at the bottom are Cliffs of Insanity.  Our path to the Lair will take us through a series of inhospitable locales consisting of a mix of these three locations:  When the first and second agendas advance (each of which has a doom threshold of five) we are forced to choose two of the following three options: 1) each investigator takes one damage and one horror, 2) each investigator hollows a card in their hand or play area, or 3) we shuffle each concealed card in play together and then place them at random in the positions they were in. Also, when the first agenda advances, the Apocalyptic Presage is shuffled into the encounter deck, but this time he's joined by a friend, the Protoplasmic Reassembler.  The remaining members of our bestiary are these guys:  Regarding treacheries, we have a few taxing ones:  But the major threat here is Secrets Lost, with Memory Variant receiving an honorable mention.  In previous scenarios featuring these cards it didn't matter too much if our hand or play are got hollowed out (beyond the immediate loss of cards to work with) but in this scenario it matters very much, not only because of the Tablet token, but because the only way to get the resolution we're chasing is to recover all of our hollowed cards... At the dark, beating heart of the City of Remnants is a mess of a structure, all black onyx stone and jagged, twisting glass. Hanging throughout the horrid lair is a jumbled nest of chains, fencewire, and alien cables. One of the entities floats in the center of the chamber: a ball of twisted, distorted space with two tendrils of shimmering plasmic light. The tendrils reach down to a humanoid figure in tattered cloth, touching its unconscious mind and pumping something out of it. We step closer and realize with horror that we recognize the covered figure upon the altar or, at least, we recognize its stark red gloves.  The Mimetic Nemesis is spawned, exhausted, at the Outsider's Lair, and each player adds two cards from their discard pile to our hollows.  The Red-Gloved Man (the real one) is also added to our hollows.  We need to free the Red-Gloved Man from the monster's grasp by dealing it damage, which moves our hollows back to our discard piles, then we can use the ability on the Lair to rescue him. We finally manage to pry the body of the Red-Gloved Man away from the creature's flashing tendrils and drag him off of the altar. He drifts in and out of consciousness as we carry him out of the entity's lair, speaking only nonsense words in an unearthly language. The moment his eyelids open before the alien skies of the Outside, he shudders awake in agony, letting out gasping, pained breaths and clutching the very spot on his forehead where the creature had latched onto him. We give him a moment to recover before asking him how he got here and what it was doing to him. To his credit, the man does not take long to return to his usual stoic demeanor, adjusting the cuffs of his suit and lowering the brim of his hat to obscure the sweat dripping down his forehead. "Not here." As if on cue, the structure of glass and onyx shudders into ruin and the entity emerges, its tendrils unfolding into a massive, eldritch shape of luminous distortion. "I don't suppose you know a way out of here?"  Strategy: Let's start with the locations. As in some of the scenarios in other campaigns where you can build your own path, we can try to make one that circles around to create a compact shape, which is beneficial for a number of reasons (such as getting out quickly at the end), but due to the way we have to expose concealed cards to spawn locations it's kind of unreliable to attempt something like that. We do have some control over it because we can choose which sides of a newly-spawned location to place the concealed cards at, but it's not worth planning around if it's going to cost any actions. Likewise, we can work out exactly where the Left, Middle, and Right concealed cards are by exposing all four at the start, and we can then use that knowledge to more or less always know which of the three cards in the shadows we'd be spawning. This would let us dodge some of the harmful effects which trigger when they spawn, but if we have to move to do so then we've probably given up more of an advantage than if we had simply eaten the chip damage or horror (losing resources or an action is more debatable). As in Sanguine Shadows, conserving our actions is paramount. And also like in that scenario, two of the locations that make up the Otherworld Deck have actions on them, but only one of them is useful, the Alien Frontier.  If we use this ability when we know we've added a card from the bottom three to the shadows, we can potentially dodge one of the Cliffs of Insanity, which is worth doing (we aren't hunting for maximum VP from this scenario). But it doesn't always line up in a way where we have immediate access to an Alien Frontier; we may be a few locations away from it when we add a card to the shadows. If we're only one or two locations away then it's probably worth checking, but if we're three or more then it's probably better to ignore it. So, we'll begin by exposing all three locations around the starting location to cycle a bunch of CoR locations into the shadows (placing any new concealed cards in locations that will allow us to create a compact shape instead of a long winding path). This will blow out the Skull token right away, but it's still better than focusing on only one direction because it gets us to the bottom three cards quickly. We'll move into one of these locations and proceed through until one of the bottom three cards in the deck enters the shadows. We'll try to check it with an Alien Frontier, but if we can't then we'll wait until the beginning of a round before moving in, because if it's the Outsider's Lair we'll want to have all of our actions at our disposal. When we enter the Lair, Joe will try to gather its four clues and then use the act ability to damage the Mimetic Nemesis by spending them (he might also have a few on hand depending upon how things have been going) and Kymani will use their Ornate Bow to hit it. Hopefully, it won't take more than a couple of turns to discard all our hollows and grab the RGM, at which point we will make a break for the starting location and attempt to resign. Kymani will have no problem passing the Agility test to do so, but Joe will need to have multiple card commits ready to be able to pass the Willpower test. We probably won't reach the Lair until after the first and second agendas have advanced. In each case, out of the three options we'll take the damage and horror plus the concealed card reshuffle, because keeping our hollows to a minimum is of the utmost importance here. I played this scenario more than any other while I was developing the decks for this campaign, and it was pretty amazing how sometimes things could be going smoothly and then within the space of a couple of rounds we fell off a cliff and had no chance of catching up. And in most of these cases it was because our hollows got out of control. A lot of things can go wrong here (finding both Cliffs of Insanity before the Lair is another good one) but losing too many cards to hollowing effects and then not being able to pass tests is the main way a run can fall apart.  The Skull token (the number of locations in play) routinely hits -8 towards the end of this scenario, and the Tablet token (one plus the number of hollows that investigator owns) on the black and blue lines here is -4, while the red line is -6, which represents a pretty smooth late game run that has just uncovered the Outsider's Lair. In a lot of early test runs each investigator ended up with hollows in the double digits (an unrecoverable state) but as I refined both decks those instances became a lot rarer, though they didn't disappear completely. When it comes to managing our hollows, the encounter deck does offer us a few chances to recover them.  If we kill the Presage we can recover three instead of taking it for VP, and if we evade an enemy with Matter Inversion we can recover one. But we need to actually draw the Presage or have other enemies in play for Matter Inversion to even be an option, and succeeding by two at Secrets Lost depends upon us having specific cards in our hand or play area. There are myriad ways for our cards to get hollowed in this scenario and not that many options for recovering them. If only we had some kind of edge... The introductory narrative bit for this scenario was right when it said we need all the help we can get. Enter Aliki Zoni Uperetria:  By choosing to blow the whistle (yes, it is a choice) we begin the game with Aliki in play, in this case under Kymani's control. We'll try to expose a concealed card every round to make sure we're getting the most out of her ability, because it is an absolute lifesaver here. Let's hope it's enough... How it went: Joe's seven card mulligan left him with Death, Luxley, MS, PMP, a Shotcaster, a Magnifying Glass, and Dynamite Blast. Kymani's opening hand contained Lola, an LCC, the Unscrupulous Loan, the BPV, Decoy, and Calculated Risk. Joe went first, playing Scene of the Crime to grab one clue, then he played Alice Luxley with MS. He then whipped out the MG and investigated with PMP, which found a Deduction. The test succeeded at +6 so he grabbed the remaining three clues and exposed the card to the east of the Court with Luxley's ping. It turned out to be the City of Remnants (R) so he moved to it (triggering no effect) and revealed a Weald of Effigies.  I didn't mention this one earlier because it's not particularly impactful (there's no point manipulating hidden information if it stays hidden, and the action on Rambling Route isn't worth using) so all it's really good for is potentially avoiding one of the CoR trigger effects. Anyway, on Kymani's turn they bought a TK from their market and played Lola with The Light of Pharos. They then played the Lucky Cigarette Case and evaded a concealed card at +4, drawing a -1 token, which allowed them to find Leo from their LCC search (both copies of him actually appeared). For their third action they played Leo followed by the Unscrupulous Loan, ending the turn on eleven resources. Also, the card they exposed turned out to be the City of Remnants (M), and its trigger effect forced them to hollow a card from their hand (Calculated Risk). During upkeep, Agent Fletcher somehow found his way into The Outside. Talk about a stubborn detective. On round two (1/5 doom) Joe drew a Substance Dissimulation, which hollowed Deduction (since it was the least useful card at that time), and Kymani drew a Matter Inversion which surged into Compulsion. Joe went first, playing Preposterous Sketches (Luxley, MG, Milan) and then Milan. This spent all of his resources and he still had the Shotcaster in hand, which is an extremely important card here since it can deal with Memory Variant (among other things) but I judged Milan to be the better play because over the course of the game he'll allow Joe to play more of his cards. He then investigated at +3 to grab a clue, pulling an Elder Sign which returned PS to the deck. He pinged another concealed card (a decoy), and Aliki returned Perception to his hand. On Kymani's turn, they bought a Disguise from their market, passed the Compulsion token draw trigger, then evaded Fletcher at +3, which succeeded when they pulled a -2, drawing The Moon from their LCC. They then played The Moon and Disguise and then tried to discard Fletcher using Disguise, at +7 (the Skull and Tablet were both quite low at this point), but it failed when they drew the -5 token. During upkeep, they drew Sure Gamble, so they were ready for Secrets Lost.  On round three (2/5 doom) we did draw a Secrets Lost, but it was Joe who pulled it. He committed Logical Reasoning and Take the Initiative to +4 it, which succeeded and allowed him to recover Deduction (taking one horror in the process). Kymani drew a Paracausal Entity.  Joe went first, playing Preposterous Sketches to try to find a Grisly Totem, but instead he found MS, Milan, and his weakness, Drawing the Sign, which was pretty unfortunate. He spent his next two actions discarding it because he simply couldn't afford to discard most of his hand, especially in this scenario. Kymani passed their Compulsion trigger again, then played Decoy to evade Fletcher and the Entity. They then made another Disguise attempt on Fletcher, at +7, but it failed when they drew the Cultist token (-6). At this point, I decided to try to get their hollowed Calculated Risk back, so they evaded a concealed card at +6 and pulled a -2 token and Aliki returned the card. They also pulled a Honed Instinct from their LCC search, and I deliberately hadn't engaged the exhausted Entity beforehand in case something like this happened (this is one of the minor things you learn from playing a deck for so many hours). They then engaged the Entity and played HI before evading it again at +8 to discard it. Their last action of the round was to commit Calculated Risk in another attempt to discard Agent Fletcher (at +10, so the only thing that could stop it was the Auto-fail token) and they finally succeeded. During upkeep, Joe drew his first Grisly Totem, and Kymani drew their Grappling Hook. On round four (3/5 doom) Joe discovered that The Claret Knight had also somehow managed to find his way into The Outside, showing up at the unrevealed location to the north of the Court. Kymani pulled a Substance Dissimulation, which hollowed their Thieves' Kit.  Joe grabbed the last clue from the Weald with Working a Hunch and pinged the card to the south before moving into it, revealing a Rambling Route (and Aliki returned Kymani's TK).  Joe's first action was to play a Grisly Totem, then he investigated twice, grabbing both clues. On Kymani's turn, they bought Dirty Fighting from their market and passed the Compulsion trigger for a third time before spending the two actions required to discard it. They then drew an Auto-fail while trying to evade a concealed card, but their second attempt succeeded, putting a CoR into play to the south of the Court. Their four card LCC search revealed Pay Day, Faustian Bargain, and the Ornate Bow, and they only had two resources left so it was really tempting to take one of the money cards. But the bow was simply too important, so they grabbed it. Their last action this turn was to draw a card since they didn't have to worry about Agent Fletcher anymore. On round five (4/5 doom) Joe drew a Matter Inversion which surged into a Paracausal Entity, which hollowed Eureka. Kymani drew Memory Variant, the second most dangerous card in the encounter deck. Too bad we didn't have that Shotcaster in play!  Kymani moved twice into the Rambling Route then engaged the Entity. They got lucky with its hollowing effect because it turned out Panic was the top card of their deck (it will only hollow non-weakness cards). Their last action was to evade with Disguise at +6, which succeeded and allowed them to draw FB from their LCC search, so next turn they would be able to play the Ornate Bow to kill it. I probably should have simply engaged it during the evade test with their fast trigger ability so it could be discarded on the next turn instead of using a bow attack, now that I think about it. On Joe's turn, he moved into the CoR to the west (and south of the Court) which turned out to be an Alien Frontier. Since the first of the bottom three cards of the Otherworld Deck was now in the shadows he used its ability, revealing a Cliffs of Insanity. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about the best course of action now, since the agenda would advance on the following round. We were doing really well on hollows (one in total) so we could probably afford to hollow two more cards so that we could keep all of the concealed cards in their current spots. One advantage of doing this is that we wouldn't have to go near the Claret Knight, but if we drew the Protoplasmic Reassembler it would spawn at his location so we might have to deal with him anyway. In the end I decided that no matter how well we were doing on hollows it was still a really bad idea to voluntarily take on more. With that decision made, Joe's last action of this turn was to investigate with Perception to cover the Skull token (which was now -6). It succeeded, spawning the Cliffs of Insanity to the west. On round six, the agenda advanced. The two set-aside enemies were shuffled into the encounter deck (now 17 cards in total), each investigator took one damage and one horror, and all seven concealed cards in play were shuffled and placed at random in their former locations. Joe drew another Secrets Lost, committing MS, Shortcut, Eureka, and a Grisly Totem boost to +3 it, which succeeded when he pulled an Elder Sign (returning Preposterous Sketches to the hunch deck). Kymani drew the Apocalyptic Presage, which hollowed Alice Luxley and Calculated Risk.  Joe went first, playing his Hyperphysical Shotcaster in Realitycollapser mode. He took a shot at the Memory Variant with Perception, at +6, and it succeeded when he pulled the Skull token (-6). He drew his Paradimensional Understanding from the Perception, which flipped The Weeping Lady to its unstable side. He then investigated at +5 to grab a clue and expose a decoy, and Aliki returned Calculated Risk. On Kymani's turn, they used their last Disguise charge to evade the Presage at +7, which succeeded. They then played FB and the bow, then shot the Entity dead and drew a Stealth from the resulting LCC search. During upkeep, Joe drew his other Grisly Totem. On round seven (1/5 doom) Joe drew Compulsion and Kymani drew the Protoplasmic Reassembler, which did indeed join The Claret Knight to the north of the Court. This is the moment we'd been saving the Deck of Possibilities for, since one of its possibilities is to simply remove a non-elite enemy from the game. Kymani pulled out the deck...  *opens Google's random number generator, sets max to nine, pushes button* The Sword. Select an Item asset from among your collection and put it into play. Huh, ok. I'm gonna have to do an ArkhamDB search for this one. Hmm, if Kymani didn't already have their Ornate Bow in play it would be funny to choose a Lightning Gun or even a M1918 BAR since we have access to Contraband. But both of those wouldn't really be that effective to fight with, and many of the other interesting, high-XP items take hand slots as well. No, it was pretty obvious which item would be the most impactful right here (and it's one I had actually tried in an earlier incarnation of their deck) even if it did bump off their LCC. It was, of course...  It's a fantastic card, and worth every bit of its XP. Kymani's second action was to reload the bow, then they played Stealth and moved to the Weald. Joe passed his Compulsion trigger then spent two actions to remove it before moving to the Court. At the end of the phase, Kymani turned back time and then went first again, moving twice to enter the City of Remnants location with both enemies, revealing another Rambling Route. They played Honed Instinct and evaded the Reassembler, finding Fence from a Manual Dexterity commit, then discarded it with Stealth at +10 (drawing a Curse token and a 0). I later realized this was a misplay; I had forgotten that the Reassembler was Massive, which means you can't engage it because you can't put Massive enemies into your threat area. In the grand scheme of things it probably wouldn't have affected the outcome of the game, as Kymani could have simply shot it twice with the bow (or Joe could have used his Dynamite Blast, which went unused the whole game). Anyway, Kymani's next action was to shoot the CK for three damage, reset The Last Blossom, then evade him with Calculated Risk at +10, which succeeded. On Joe's turn, he investigated to expose the last concealed card at the Court (to the west), putting a CoR into play (the second last card in the deck). He then played his second Grisly Totem and played No Stone Unturned, grabbing TTI in case he pulled the third Secrets Lost. On round eight (2/5 doom) Joe drew a Paracausal Entity, which hollowed the other Shotcaster, and Kymani drew Distorted Reasoning.  Kymani went first, purchasing Disguise and then evading the CK at +4, which failed when they drew the Cultist (-6) token, pulling the Entity on top of them and hollowing a card from their deck. Or at least that's what would have happened if they didn't have Sure Gamble! They played it to pass the test, then they nocked an arrow, finished off the CK, and drew a card (the second Sure Gamble). Then, at the end of their turn, they failed the Distorted Reasoning test by pulling a Cultist token which, yeah, pulled the Entity on top of them and hollowed a card from their deck. Or at least, that's what would have happened if Panic hadn't been the top card of their deck again! So that part worked out well, but they still had the Entity keeping them company. On Joe's turn he moved into the Rambling Route, switched the Shotcaster to Railshooter mode, and blasted the Entity away at +6 (the Skull token was -8 but Kymani had plenty of health to spare). He then investigated, grabbing a clue and putting the last card from the Otherworld Deck into play to the west. We now had a 50/50 chance of entering the Lair on the next round. During upkeep, Kymani finally drew Panic. On round nine (3/5 doom) Joe drew a Paradigm Effacer and Kymani drew Touch of the Beyond, putting one doom on Leo De Luca.  We had planned to enter the CoR to the west this round, but there were now a few too many reasons not to. Kymani had Panic and Distorted Reasoning in play, they needed to reload their bow, Leo had doom on him so the second agenda would advance next round, and the Effacer was floating around nearby. Kymani also had Disguise and Dirty Fighting in their hand, both of which would be much more useful if they were in play, and there was one clue left on the Rambling Route. Joe went first, switching the Shotcaster back to RC mode to remove the Distorted Reasoning at +8 (Eureka plus two Totem boosts) to cover the Skull token, and it succeeded. Kymani used TLB to remove Panic and heal both investigators, then Joe played Logical Reasoning to heal two horror from himself (leaving one on him). His last action was to investigate, grabbing the clue, and he avoided the Effacer's end of turn hollowing effect because he had no cards left in his deck. Kymani reloaded their bow and played Fence (leaving them on zero resources) then Stealthed a concealed card just to boost the number of actions they performed this turn. They then engaged the Effacer and shot it dead with the bow at +6, then played Pay Day using Fence to gain five resources. At the end of their turn, Joe reset The Weeping Lady, discarding the doomed Leo and a Magnifying Glass. During upkeep, Kymani drew their Paradimensional Understanding, which flipped the Wellspring of Fortune. On round ten (4/5 doom) Joe drew a Distorted Reasoning and Kymani drew an Otherworldly Mimic.  Joe went first, spending the last charge of his Shotcaster to remove Distorted Reasoning (drawing two cards from his GTs), then he moved into the CoR to the west, revealing the Outsider's Lair. The act advanced, adding PMP, LR, PD, and Leo to our hollows (these four were the only ones—we were doing really well) along with the RGM.  Joe investigated with two Deductions and PMP (Perception) to hit +9, which succeeded. He exposed a card with Alice, which allowed Aliki to return Leo to Kymani's hand. It also put another CoR into play which made him lose two resources (and the Skull token was now -9) but four clues, one resource, and two cards from one action is still a pretty good score. On Kymani's turn they played Leo, entered the Lair, and and shot the Mimetic Nemesis at +6 by committing Disguise (we really needed to cover the Cultist token otherwise the Nemesis would wake up). It succeeded, so we recovered the last three hollows and Kymani rescued the Red-Gloved Man, which advanced the act. Their last action was to move back to the Rambling Route, where the Mimic engaged them. They used Stealth at +5 and drew a -3 token, which allowed the RGM to hit it for one damage, which in turn allowed Kymani to reset The Last Blossom. They then used Fence to play Pay Day again for five resources, and during the enemy phase they took two horror from the Mimic's attack, which the RGM absorbed. Then, at the end of the round, Joe used "I've had worse..." to absorb the hit from the Nemesis. On round eleven, the second agenda advanced. Joe used his second "I've had worse..." to absorb the hit, and we chose the concealed card shuffle effect again, not that it mattered anymore. Joe drew the third Secrets Lost and succeeded at +7 with a double TTI commit and GT boost (drawing his weakness again, plus a No Stone Unturned). He took a shortcut to the Rambling Route then moved to the Court, where he played NSU to find his other Logical Reasoning. Kymani played Decoy and used Stealth at +8 along with the Wellspring of Fortune to reset it, and they actually succeeded at discarding the Mimic when they drew Cultist and zero tokens. On round twelve (1/6 doom) Joe pulled a Memory Variant and Kymani drew another Otherworldly Mimic. Joe made two attempts to resign simply to lower the difficulty of the test, then on his third attempt he committed two Logical Reasonings boosted by the Totems, a Hyperphysical Shotcaster and Kymani's LCC to +9 it. Kymani had also activated the Wellspring of Fortune to ensure the Auto-fail token wouldn't interfere, and Joe successfully resigned. On Kymani's turn, they took three resource actions to bring them up to ten to cover the terms and conditions of their dodgy loan, then they successfully resigned at +3 (with Sure Gamble in hand). The misplay I made was really annoying because I wanted to get this scenario right, but as I said, it probably wouldn't have affected the outcome. We had four full rounds to spare, and we wouldn't have tried to find the Lair until the Reassembler was dealt with anyway. This was honestly one of the smoothest runs I've ever had here, but if that first Secrets Lost test had thrown up an Auto-fail it could have still been very messy. Kalko fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 2, 2023 06:47
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Resolution 1. We awaken on the ship's deck, dreamlike memories and otherworldly visions swimming in our minds. The only sign that what we saw was real and not a mere nightmare is a red-gloved grip as a man pulls each of us to our feet and dusts off our shoulders. Nearby, Aliki watches wordlessly, her expression blank. Agent Quinn rises steadily to her feet as well. The world wobbles as our vision settles over a new dimension. "Stay with us," the man says, his voice smoother and more natural than we remember. We demand answers: what was he doing in London, what was that hellish place, and why was he there? "London?" He scoffs. "I haven't been to London lately. I don't even know who you are." This is for sure the same man we saw in London—isn't it? "As for that place, I have only a vague sense, but I have no idea what brought me there or how long I have been gone. That thing..." He lifts the brimof his fedora and clutches his forehead so hard his hands shake. "It was... prying. Searching. Learning." Aliki finally speaks, with Quinn once again translating. "She says that the creatures are not just taking things, they are... what would be the right word..." she struggles to retain her composure as Aliki once again switches languages. "...adapting. Mimicking." Cold realization washes over us. This is what Aliki had been afraid of—why she had come to us for help. The man we saw in London was not the same as the man before us now. It was an imposter. It was one of them. "It seems I am in your debt," the man says, extending a red-gloved hand. "But unfortunately, I have much to do. If these creatures have infiltrated the Coterie, none can be trusted, myself most especially. If you see me again, assume it is not me. In the meantime, I will get to the bottom of this and confront the others with my findings when the time is right." We nod and shake his hand. There is more at stake here than we ever realized, and we can only get to the heart of it by working together. The cell knows the true nature of the Coterie. Aliki is on our side. +3 Time. Time = 37. ----- 2VP (locations) + 1VP (resolution bonus) + 2XP (Charon's Obol - Kymani Only) = 3XP for Joe. 5XP for Kymani. ----- Status Report - Omega: Arriving back at our hotel in Bermuda, a shape emerges from the corner of the room. Later, we would recall being clocked on the head, and a brief splash of red. One Cultist token is added to the chaos bag. The investigators are out of time and must travel directly to Tunguska. Upgrades Joe: 1 x Studious: This is the simplest option to spend 3XP on, and it's very good anyway so it's not like we're making a compromise. 3XP spent, 0XP left. Kymani:  Honed Instinct: We'll grab the Force of Habit upgrade here, which lets us take two actions instead of one (and removes HI from the game). There are a lot of nice things we could've purchased with 5XP but this is probably the best one which actually targets something in the finale. And that something is the Tablet token, which only has a -2 modifier, but if there is a ready Outsider enemy at the location where you perform the test, you automatically fail. So, in this case, boosting our chances of success won't help us, but if we could simply take the test again we might not draw a Tablet token the second time. Yes, this means that if we had 6XP instead, Ace in the Hole would've been a shoo-in. -------------------- Scenario Nine: Congress of the Keys  "Wake up," a sinister voice commands. Blinking away unconsciousness, we realize, with some panic, that we're bound to our chairs. Gags prevent us from making any noise louder than a muffled cry. As our eyes adjust to the dim light, we realize we must be underground. The large, windowless chamber is made of clean, worked stone, lit faintly by mercury vapor lamps. Scarlet tapestries line the walls, along with several glass cases and shelves containing old relics and historical artifacts. Dominating the room is an enormous central table, an elaborate pattern of lines and rings carved meticulously along its surface. Standing around this central table are a host of figures, some familiar to us, others unrecognizable. All of them bear red. "You have been brought here to account for your crimes against the Coterie," the voice states, "or to be commended, if that is the will of the Congress. We will now entertain any who wish to speak on your behalf, or against you." The elderly, well-dressed knight from Alexandria steps forward. Oh boy. "The course of action is clear," he states. "They are untrustworthy and aim to wrench control away from us. They must be disposed of." On the opposite end of the table, the hooded, crimson-shrouded figure of the knight's enemy growls. "For once, we agree on something," it rumbles, its voice feral and inelegant. The knight's eyes narrow. "Do not let it go to your head," he warns. Well, that's two votes against us already. Not the best start, all things considered. A woman in a vermillion veil is next to speak. "If we purport to be a morally righteous organization, we cannot destroy each and every thing that stands in our way. Progress requires understanding and cooperation. And I abhor violence. We should be working with these individuals, not against them." drat straight, whoever you are! That's 1-2 now. Amaranth grins wickedly as her eyes fall on us. Hmm, this ain't gonna be good. "Oh, I have been waiting for this moment," she drawls, her eyes flashing. "Meddlesome fools. Did you think your interference in our plans would go unpunished?" Yeah, chalk up another nay. 1-3. Next up is another familiar face. Looks like Thorne made it out of Alaska in one piece. Good for them. "Our extensive operations require that we collaborate with many across the globe. Researchers. Local authorities. Criminals. These before us are no different. And they have proven themselves to be quite useful. They aided our efforts in Anchorage, and even saw the wisdom in keeping the Key there safe in our custody." Yep, that's exactly what happened. Thanks, buddy! That's 2-3. With ethereal grace, Aliki Zoni Uperetria steps out of the shadows, a golden-hued blade sheathed on her back. Her scarlet sash drifts along a breezeless wind. She whispers something soft and quiet in her usual lexicon of forgotten prose. One of the assembled Coterie translates. "Uperetria states that..." they skew their eyebrows up in surprise. "...that those assembled before us are truly loyal servants to the cause, as we are." Murmurs erupt around us. Yeah, that's right! You heard her, loyal servants! 3-3. "Should I know who the hell these people are?" a man in a suit with a red tie says, lighting a cigarette and taking a long puff. The smoke wafts into the darkness above the table. "This is a waste of time. Aren't you all always goin' on about eliminating unknown factors? Get rid of 'em so we can focus on what really matters." Well who the hell are you? 3-4. Suddenly, the large, imposing figure of Abarran Arrigorriagakoa slams his fist on the ceremonial table in the center of the chamber. We both sigh deeply. "These interlopers! They tried to ruin me! Tried to take away my fortune, my chosen!" His face is flushed red and trembling with rage, his knuckles white. "I will punish them myself! I will rip them limb from limb! I will—" The man continues his rant for some time before his rage simmers to indignation. 3-5. The Red-Gloved Man is in attendance, but we can't see his face. For some reason, he remains eerily silent... Before the next member is even given the chance to speak, a figure emerges from behind the man with the red gloves, and something small and dark is placed against the base of his skull. There is a thunder in our ears as the gunshot rings out across the chamber. The man's face explodes not in grotesquerie, but in a flood of distorted mist that crests outward and reforms above the man's hollowed body. It takes the vague shape of a many-armed spiral, like a galaxy of stars pinching all of reality around its otherworldly form. The clothes the Red-Gloved Man previously wore crumple to the ground, empty. The rest of the assembled Coterie draw their weapons and attack the entity, but it quickly escapes the chamber, reassembling its ectoplasmic form before our very eyes on its way out. Several more of the things follow suit, the attire of their previous forms falling, limp and hollow, to the floor. From the shadows emerges the true figure of the Red-Gloved Man. "They are here," he states with surprising nonchalance, reloading his sidearm. "Among us. Perhaps the rest of you might have noticed, had you kept your gaze on our mission." He shares with us a knowing glance and the barest hint of an impish grin. "These 'accused' are to thank for my return to this realm. Without them, you might all be dead. This trial is over." There is no debate whatsoever. Our gags are taken out and our bindings are cut. We are brought before the ceremonial table, standing by the man's side. "What are they after? Where have you been?" one of the Coterie asks. "They are after our world. Perhaps every world," he replies, pulling his scarlet gloves taut around his hands. "But now is our chance to strike back. To follow them to their home and end this threat, once and for all." Nods and murmurs of consent ripple throughout the assembly. The Red Coterie spared the cell.  We begin play at the Scarlet Halls, and there are three other Sanctum locations in play (unrevealed). Each of these locations also has a less-friendly Lair version, which is what we would be using if the congress didn't go our way. But, fortunately, since we completed "Without a Trace" successfully, the RGM intervenes and automatically grants us one of the "good" starts to this scenario.  The other major consequence of getting the best ending from "Without a Trace" is that the entire Red Coterie is on our side, and this is the reason I described this scenario earlier as basically a victory lap. Meet Team Diamond:  And Team Jones:  Thorne has The Sable Glass, Desiderio Delgado Alvarez has The Mirroring Blade, and The Claret Knight has The Eye of Ravens, all of which are now under our control.  The token bag here is actually pretty ugly since it has four Cultist tokens (-7), and the Tablet tokens (-2) are slightly deceptive because of their auto-fail effect when there's a ready Outsider at our location.  Returning to the task at hand, to advance the act we need to visit the other three locations to collect four clues in total and expose the fake RGM.  Finally, we spot the man with the red gloves just before he ducks into a shimmering, extradimensional portal. There is no time to lose — it's now or never! We follow swiftly as the portal closes... All of the locations in the game now get removed, and three new ones enter play, arranged vertically.  We arrive at The Knotted Tower, and we place the L, M, and R City of Remnants minicards face down at random to its left, right, and bottom. We also put the top three cards from the Otherworld Deck into the shadows, just like in "Without a Trace."  Beyond all of known reality, in the dimension known only to the forgotten and the forsaken, lies the preposterous City of Remnants — the homeworld of the Outsiders themselves. Looming before us, a terrifying, twisted tower of jumbled architecture is a nexus of roiling mist and clouds across an alien sky. The fake RGM is waiting for us at The Towering Vertex, and to reach him we need to proceed up the Knotted Tower and into the Gravity-Defying Climb by spending eight clues (which we'll collect by exploring all of the City of Remnants locations). Once we do so, we then need to solve a puzzle to go any further. Seven forgotten locks grant entry to the tower, each one a piece of history from a realm long since erased from time. We forget they exist the moment the gates open. On the other side, steps course their way up the spire's baffling length. Winding, perplexing, and seemingly infinite, the ascent to the apex of the tower that binds this world together is paradoxical, a Gordian knot twisted far too many times. Even if we make it to the top, we doubt we will ever find a way back.  The Otherworld Deck and any remaining City of Remnants locations in the shadows are removed from the game, and we take the three CoR minicards plus two decoys, shuffle them together, and place them face down to either side of the Gravity-Defying Climb. When we expose one of these cards, if it's next in the sequence (L -> M -> R) it stays exposed, otherwise we flip all exposed cards back over, without shuffling. And once we've completed the sequence, we can move into The Towering Vertex... With herculean effort, we practically crawl from the final step to the tower's pinnacle. Twisting clouds of crimson and violet clash in a multidimensional sky, infinite gateways to infinite worlds, all of them oblivious, all of them blind, all of them theirs for the taking. We look out upon the world of the Outsiders with both awe and pity, upon the countless worlds' worth of ruin they have collected, discarded, forsaken, lost to all time. It is a garbage heap of cosmic proportions. At the very center lies our foe who has orchestrated humanity's erasure. Its body only scarcely resembles that of the Red-Gloved Man now. With no human face to wear, its gaze is empty, its expression unknowable. The fake Red-Gloved Man swaps places with the set-aside Mimetic Nemesis: Infiltrator of Realities.  Its minicard is shuffled together with four decoys, and we take all five cards and place them face down around the tower.  In order to defeat this particular Ancient One we will need to expose these concealed cards. If we hit a decoy it stays exposed, but if we hit its minicard we'll deal it three damage (and then all of the minicards get shuffled and placed facedown again). We can also try to fight it the regular way, but its ability makes that a bit iffy. There is, however, a way we can even the odds: by using our Keys.  Strategy: The first agenda has a doom threshold of three, and when it advances we have to flip two of our Keys to their unstable side. We have a lot of Keys now so this should be fine, but we'll try to keep The Sable Glass available for the puzzle at the Gravity-Defying Climb, and we might even be able to use it once or twice during the boss fight because Aliki really helps mitigate the cost of resetting it.  Apart from that, we'll use our Keys the way we always do, and hopefully both investigators will find their Paradimensional Understanding early so that we can get it out of the way before we head up the tower; eliminating the uncertainty around flipping or shifting them makes it easier to plan their usage. Notably, the effect from The Key Reliquary doesn't help us with Paradimensional Understanding, otherwise it might be worth using. As it is, it's not worth the time and whatever commits would be necessary to ensure success on the test.  We won't spend much time in the Coterie hideout but we can spend a turn or two at the Congress Chamber to find our important assets if we need to.  Joe will want one of his Hyperphysical Shotcasters, because this scenario has the Striking Fear set (minus Rotting Remains), so it will come in handy for dealing with Frozen in Fear and Dissonant Voices.  Surprisingly, for a campaign finale, there are no unique treacheries here. The closest one would be Paradimensional Terror from the Beyond the Beyond set, which includes all of the City of Remnants locations.  It was present in "Without a Trace" but it didn't really do much there except hit us for damage and horror, and while it will do the same here, its other effect is at least a bit more relevant since it can hit the exposed decoys at the top of the tower. Apart from that, the list of other treacheries reads a bit like a Greatest Hits from the whole campaign, with Secrets Lost and Memory Variant being a couple of standouts (but at least we don't have to reclaim all of our hollows here). It also has Ancient Evils, but our Coterie crew gives us a huge efficiency boost so we won't have to worry about the clock. As far as enemies go, all of the non-elite Outsiders are here, including the Apocalyptic Presage. Decoy will come in handy for dealing with them, just as it did in "Without a Trace", with the added bonus of allowing us to bypass the Tablet token's auto-fail effect.  Once we've stepped through the portal and entered The Knotted Tower, we'll proceed to explore the City of Remnants locations just as we did in "Without a Trace" until we get the required eight clues. We'll then use The Sable Glass to How it went: Joe's opening hand contained Death, Milan, a Shotcaster, "I've had worse...", Eureka, TTI, and Logical Reasoning. Kymani ended up with Lola, Faustian Bargain, Intel Report, and both copies of Manual Dexterity. Kymani went first, purchasing Pickpocketing from their market. Joe used Ece's ability on Kymani, finding an LCC. Kymani then shifted TLB to heal, drawing the LCC, then they used TLoP to play Lola and exhausted Desi to move to one of the unrevealed locations, which turned out to be the Congress Chamber. Their first actual action of the turn was to use its tutoring ability, from which they drew The Moon. They then played The Moon and for their final action they tutored again, finding their Ornate Bow (no Leo from two searches was pretty unlucky). Joe exhausted LCR to move to the Congress Chamber, where he played Preposterous Sketches (MS, DB, 1911s) then played MS to play Milan. His last action for the turn was to investigate, which failed when he drew the Cultist token (-7). During upkeep, he drew Alice Luxley. On round two (1/3 doom) Joe drew Distorted Reasoning and Kymani drew Paradimensional Terror, choosing the shuffle effect since we hadn't yet exposed any concealed cards. Joe went first, using Ece on Kymani again to find Decoy. He then played the Shotcaster and removed Distorted Reasoning, then investigated, grabbing one clue. Kymani bought their second Pickpocketing, then used the CC's tutoring ability again, finding Stealth. They then played Faustian Bargain and both Pickpocketings and their LCC, ending the turn on zero resources. On round three (2/3 doom) Joe drew Secrets Lost, which he managed to pass by committing TTI and LR, and Kymani drew a Memory Variant, which Joe removed with his first action. He then grabbed the other clue at the CC and moved back to the Scarlet Halls, where he exhausted LCR to move to another unrevealed location, the Key Reliquary. I decided not to use Ece again this turn because if either investigator had a desirable card on top of their deck I'd have to use the Wellspring to draw it, and it didn't seem worth it. Kymani purchased a Disguise then used the CC's ability for the fourth time, and they finally found Leo! Their second action was to move back to the SH, where they exhausted the RGM to move to the last unrevealed location, the Coterie Library. They exhausted the CK to get the cost reduction, then played Leo with their third action. They then exhausted Thorne to get another cost reduction and played Stealth for free. On round four, the first agenda advanced, flipping the Eye of Ravens and The Mirroring Blade to unstable. Joe drew another Secrets Lost, which he passed with a single TTI commit, and Kymani drew an Otherworldly Mimic. A couple of rounds later, we had advanced the act and were heading into the City of Remnants, when Agent Fletcher appeared. Kymani failed to evade him twice in a row, and would have failed a third time except they had drawn the Cultist token and I chose to flip the Wellspring of Fortune to pass the test. On that same turn, they discarded him with Stealth and took Fence from a 7-point LCC search because Panic was in play and it would allow them to get around it to put both Dirty Fighting and Disguise into play on their next turn. On round seven (4/10 doom) Joe drew an Otherworldly Mimic and Kymani found the Apocalyptic Presage, which hollowed "I've had worse..." and Intel Report. Kymani immediately used Thorne's ability to take an action, using Disguise to evade it at +5, which succeeded when they drew the -4 token (gaining two resources from double PP). They then exhausted Dirty Fighting to fire their bow at +7, which hit when they drew a -3 token, and they reacted to this test with LCC (Sure Gamble) and the Red-Gloved Man, using his clue discovering effect to expose a concealed card, which turned out to be a decoy. During the test, Joe used Ece on his own deck, finding Perception, and after the damage had been dealt, Kymani reset TLB to have Joe draw Perception, MS, and a Magnifying Glass, drawing a Decoy for themselves.  Joe was hanging out at the Cliffs of Insanity, and he played Scene of the Crime to grab two clues. He then investigated with Deduction boosted by one Grisly Totem, which succeeded at +8, letting him grab the other two clues and one resource. He was two locations to the left of The Knotted Tower, and his last action of the turn was to move back to the Rambling Route. Kymani engaged the Presage and played Honed Instinct to gain two actions. They then nocked an arrow and fired at +7 to finish it off (returning all three hollows back to their owners' hands) and grab another HI from their LCC. They reloaded the bow again, played Stylish Coat and Hidden Pocket, then moved back to The Knotted Tower (from the Rambling Route) where they used Stealth to expose a concealed card to the right. They spawned the CoR (L) and lost two resources then used the reaction on TKT to move to it, revealing the Weald of Effigies, which hollowed a Honed Instinct. At the end of their turn, they used Fence to play Pay Day, gaining seven resources (six plus Stylish Coat). On round eight (5/10 doom) Joe drew a Substance Dissimulation ("I've had worse...") and Kymani drew a Paradigm Effacer. At this point, I remembered Kymani had the Deck of Possibilities, so I figured now was as good a time as any to use it. They ended up hitting The Champion, which lets you put an ally into play from your collection.  This was kind of annoying because I didn't want to discard Lola or Leo, but you can't choose to not put an ally into play so I had to find something. So, like a lot of player card rewards from standalones, the Deck of Possibilities lets you do some weird stuff which sometimes stretches the boundaries of the rules (and sometimes breaks them) but the term "from your collection" has been referenced on other cards before, and really, if you read it as written then you can put pretty much anything you like into play anyway, including story assets and/or allies which are encounter cards. You could even put the original Red-Gloved Man into play, getting around the rule in the campaign guide that says you aren't allowed to include him in your deck. Three RGMs in play at the same time would be amusing but not particularly useful, and ally cards with encounter card backs don't take up an ally slot so they could exist alongside Leo and Lola, but most of them wouldn't really accomplish much since they tend to have scenario-specific abilities. No, I was going to have to find something to bump Lola off, which was a shame because I was planning to use her ability to expose cards at the top of the tower (at six resources per hit). I pretty much knew which card I was going to pick at this point, because it's the card I picked a couple of times during testing at various points in the campaign when I triggered this effect, but I still scanned through the list of useful options.  Gene Beauregard would let me keep Lola's stat buffs (I was actually more concerned about losing them than her ability) and The Black Cat is a really powerful and fun card to play, and it would neatly take care of the Tablet token's auto-fail effect, but, given the option, how could I possibly resist calling for...  During Joe's turn this round we advanced the act by moving into the Gravity-Defying Climb. This removed all the City of Remnants locations from the game, which discarded the two enemies that had been floating around. Kymani also used TLB to remove Panic and heal, since both investigators had been at the same location. On round nine (6/10 doom) Joe drew a Memory Variant and Kymani drew Frozen in Fear. A rare Auto-fail pull resulted in Joe having to use two actions to remove Frozen in Fear, which used up his Shotcaster, so he played another one. Kymani moved into the GDC and used The Sable Glass to reveal all five concealed cards at the GDC. What happened next was a long chain of actions and abilities that I'll summarize using something similar to the shorthand I use to record each game. Here's the full turn: -> GDC ~> TSG (reveal all CCs) -> Ev (L) -> +HP -> +3 -> -4 ~> SG (hollowed by MV) ~> HI ~> LCC (7 -> PU -> shift TSG (hollow Contra/DB) ~> Thorne -> Ev (M) -> +2 -> -1 ~> Aliki (DB) -> Ev (R) -> +2 -> -3 ~> AB (1D) (R) -> TTV ~> TMB (1DD each) ~> WoF -> Ev (CC) -> -14-> Decoy -> (decoy) (hollowed by MV) -> Dis (MN) -> +CR -> +8 -> -3 (PPx2 -> D2, 2R) Or, in other words, at the end of their turn, Kymani was at The Towering Vortex and had exposed one decoy, and the Mimetic Nemesis was exhausted.  During upkeep, Joe drew his own PU, which flipped The Weeping Lady. On round ten (7/10 doom) Joe drew Compulsion and Kymani drew Distorted Reasoning. Joe went first, failing the Compulsion token draw, so he spent his first two actions to discard it and then his last one on removing Kymani's Distorted Reasoning. On their turn, Kymani used the act ability, flipping TMB to remove the exposed decoy from the game. They then used Agency Backup to expose another decoy (with Aliki returning Decoy to their hand) and they flipped the Wellspring of Fortune to remove it from the game too. Their third action was to play their newly-returned copy of Decoy, which exposed another decoy (and hollowed itself again). This triggered Thorne's reaction ability, which they used to flip The Sable Glass to remove the third decoy from the game. Their fourth action was to evade the boss with Disguise, at +5, which failed when they drew a Tablet token so they were going to eat a 3/3 hit during the enemy phase (somewhere, in another dimension, The Black Cat grinned). During the player window after their fourth action, they used Stealth to evade the MN, which wouldn't stop the incoming hit, but it did succeed by two, which allowed The Red-Gloved Man to expose another concealed card with his reaction ability. It turned out to be the MN card, so it took three damage.  During the enemy phase, Desi took two damage, one of which was cancelled, and his reaction ability hit the MN successfully for one damage, not that it really mattered.  On round eleven (8/10 doom) Joe drew a Touch of the Beyond and Kymani drew a Paradigm Effacer but, sadly, for the forces of the mythos, it was too little, too late. Our Agency Backup exposed the Mimetic Nemesis's minicard (a 50/50 chance) to hit it for three damage, and Kymani Jones fired their bow, at +7, to deliver the killing blow. Resolution 1. The entity collapses upon itself, its wordless screech washing over the world and worlds beyond, reverberating through our skulls, tearing us apart molecule by molecule. We remain tethered to reality only by the energy of our Keys, which endure even as all else implodes around us. There is a sensation of tugging at the back of our skulls, a feeling of being yanked by a fishhook out of ravaged waters. Then, darkness. --- The feeling of being flung across worlds does not cease until we strike solid ground. Though our weary bodies protest, we scamper to our feet and scan our surroundings, ready for anything. But when we realize where we are, we're shocked to find... [tosses a random token on the world map] ...desert, for miles in every direction. It takes several weeks for us to find our way out of, uh, the middle of the Sahara Desert, and to contact the other members of our cell who survived the collapsing of the Outsiders' realm. It seems that, at least for now, their scheme has been dismantled. Perhaps a long-earned vacation is in order, but first there is one last order of business to resolve... --- "Talk," Commissioner Taylor commands. We shift in our uncomfortable metal chairs, the glaring light of her interrogation lamp nearly blinding us. One wall of the sterile interrogation chamber is covered by a black mirror that reflects us and the Commissioner sitting across a desk from one another, our faces blanched under heavy white light. Knowing the Foundation, several operatives are watching and recording our every move from behind the mirror. A thick dossier lies unopened on the desk between us and Taylor. We find ourselves awkwardly repeating events and names as we struggle to relay our experience to the commissioner. Throughout it all, Taylor remains silent, listening to our various rabbit trails and accounts of events with an air of reserve. When we have finished, she slides a couple of glasses of water across the desk. We see our shadowy reflection glimmer within the black mirror in the corner of our eye. "What an... unrestrained account," she says matter-of-factly. A heavy silence falls as the commissioner makes a near-imperceptible nod at the black mirror to her left, then looks back to us. "The Foundation thanks you for your service. Understand that everything you have done during your tenure with the Foundation is classified, and you are bound under threat of execution to never share this account with another soul: living or dead." She locks eyes with us. "Do you understand?" We nod, and the commissioner goes on. "It goes without saying, but I must inform you that your temporary 'cell' has been disavowed and all assets acquired during your Foundation service will be retained for further study and research. Your account of all events involving paracausal disturbance will be extracted, analyzed, and preserved for future analysis." Commissioner Taylor opens the dossier in front of her and slides a set of tickets across the table to you. "These are one-way tickets that will take you anywhere in the world, no questions asked. Given your troublesome curiosity, I recommend you go somewhere quiet and forgettable, assume an alias, and take up a profession that does not allow you so much free time or thinking. Oh, and stop wearing that," she says, gesturing off-handedly at our appearance. We interrupt and try to explain ourselves. The commissioner holds up one hand to silence us. "In truth, I must inform you that you are getting off rather easily here. If the higher-ups had their say, you would have been summarily executed for your reckless handling of this case. The word 'collusion' was tossed around. Had you toed the line, this case might have made your career. In my estimation, you have created far more trouble than you resolved." Taylor stands up, and we stand with her. Several burly suits step through the door behind us, flooding the room with light. The commissioner gives us a firm handshake, her eyes locked with ours. "The Foundation thanks you for your service. May we never meet again." The Outsiders were stopped. The cell was dismantled. Each investigator suffers two physical trauma and two mental trauma, as they may never truly recover from their paradimensional ordeal. The investigators win the campaign!
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============== The Scarlet Keys ============== Part Three: The Conclusion This report ended up being a lot longer than I was planning, but then it did have nine scenarios, or ten if you count the two parts of Fortune and Folly, which is a very long scenario by itself. In any case, I'll finish with a deck retrospective and a brief review of the campaign itself. The Decks In a game that's all about mitigating risk, the deck that performs the most consistently across all scenarios is the one that will make it to the end. It's easy enough to fine-tune a deck for a particular scenario and get a good result every time, but if it falls over in a heap on the next one you won't get very far. Thus, having to take into account an entire campaign is one of the things that makes deck building so interesting and rewarding in this game. But even with the best possible deck there's no guarantee you'll make it to the end, because randomness is a key part of the game (and an essential part, of course). Competitive MTG or Pokemon players will tell you there's no such thing as "playstyle." Any time you have to make a decision during a game, there is a single correct choice which will give you the best chance of winning, and many incorrect choices. Evaluating all of the information at your disposal—both public and hidden—to make the optimal play is often difficult or even impossible, but regardless of what deck you're playing or the hand of cards you've been dealt, there is always only one correct choice. This game works more or less the same way. While playing, I know there's always a best move (or, if you wanted to qualify that statement a bit you could say there's always a "statistically best move") and something similar applies to deck building. There is always an optimal list of 30 cards for any campaign, and I enjoy trying to discover it through rigorous iteration and repetition. But, at some point, you just have to go with what you've got and hope for the best. Joe Diamond  Whenever I pick a new investigator, my first stop for gathering ideas on what to put in their deck is ArkhamDB. I browse through a few pages of the most recent lists looking for commonly picked cards just to raise my awareness of the available card pool and find out what a goodstuff.dec list looks like. I mentally sort out the good picks from the bad, then I put something together and try the first scenario or two. For Joe, the ArkhamDB consensus on his hunch deck was pretty much universal, with cards like Preposterous Sketches, Scene of the Crime, Working a Hunch, and No Stone Unturned appearing in every list. That made sense, but the main deck cards in the lists were naturally all over the place. The first version of Joe's deck included a few new TSK cards I wanted to test out:  Breach the Door: I liked this one a lot but it was a bit too situational for the hunch deck and it needed too much support to be effective on Hard. I can see it being great in an actual Guardian deck. Map the Area: I tried to evaluate this card by thinking about situations like the final location in Riddles and Rain, which had four clues and a parley test for the RGM, and when I played with it there were some times when it was pretty good. In the end though it was too situational, but I wonder if it would be good at higher player counts on clue-heavy locations. Empirical Hypothesis: I added this one to provide card draw (choosing the "succeed by three" trigger) but it sat in my hand too often because other assets were more important to get onto the table, and it didn't trigger every turn even when it was in play. One way of making it more reliable is to grab the "Trial and Error" upgrade and play Field Agent, since with the 2.0 FAQ any damage or horror dealt to one of your assets is considered to have been dealt to you. Once I had started to get a feel for what Hard was asking of the deck, I turned to the MB Discord to search for new ideas and commentary on specific cards. I often create a starting deck which targets the second or third scenario in a campaign and then work backwards to make it fit the first, but TSK was a bit different in this regard because you can do most of the scenarios in whatever order you like. The only thing I was certain of when I started planning my new campaign was that it would include "Without a Trace," and since I had completely failed it on Standard I decided to make it my starting point for Hard. So, the first problem to solve was how to survive the insane amount of damage and horror it could throw out. I figured more soak would be the best idea, so I experimented with different allies:  Medical Student: This card felt pretty good to play, especially after Kathmandu when Joe picked up one mental trauma, but it was awkward trying to play it before Milan or Luxley hit the table, and if both ended up in play then it was dead weight in hand. Michael Leigh: I intended to try this card right from the start since 5XP cards are fun and it was in Joe's colours. It's a pretty great card and a 3/3 body is noticeably tankier than a 2/2, but it just wasn't a great fit because, again, it had to bump off one of the other allies. At one point I added a second copy of Charisma so I could have the full detective squad in play, but that plus two copies of Micheal Leigh ate up a huge amount of XP and I simply couldn't justify it, especially since Joe didn't benefit much from the Combat boost. Calling in Favors: This was a natural include after the deck had six allies in it, and it felt pretty good to bounce the Medical Student, but spending so much deck space on allies and supporting cards really weakened it in other areas. The next problem to solve was how to deal with Secrets Lost and Memory Variant, since they were the main reason I fell behind all the time.  Bestow Resolve: This is kind of a build-around card, but I stuffed it into the ally-heavy version of the deck anyway. It was good when you could get it into play and commit something to get three wild icons, but therein lies the problem: when it's not in play you're stuck with a bunch of cards you can't commit to tests. This card did make me think there was something here, like it could be part of a good deck, but the one I had built sure as poo poo wasn't that. Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but Survey the Area and Defensive Stance both have six wild icons when Joe commits them with Bestow Resolve. Inspiring Presence: This card has always seemed on the verge of being playable to me, so it felt like a logical include when I was 1) running Bestow Resolve, 2) had a heap of allies, and 3) needed more soak. And it was pretty good, but it didn't quite do enough to justify the slots; it's not enough to just heal an ally, you need to be able to reuse its ability every time. When I realized The Last Blossom might be the solution to half of the problem posed by "Without a Trace" I then started looking into how to pack more firepower into Joe's deck in order to take on "Dead Heat." I got rid of the extra allies, but I kept Bestow Resolve for a while because it would be good with two of these cards:  Old Shotgun: I didn't think this card was a great idea but I wanted to test it anyway because it was one of the very few decent weapons available for Joe. When you play it with the other two cards in this section it comes into play with two ammo. Prepared for the Worst (2): I'm looking forward to playing this in my next Guardian deck because it's an excellent card; it's not flashy, it's just very solid, offering search and action compression at the same time. Ever Vigilant (1): This is a great card, but it felt weird playing it without Stick to the Plan. Oh, how I wish Joe could take Ever Vigilant (4); it would have single-cardedly solved Kymani's setup/asset jam problem. The Old Shotgun was a fun idea, but lacking on two main fronts. The first was that "Dead Heat" had to be the second scenario so Joe only had 8XP to spend going into it, and the second was that after that scenario Joe didn't really need to fight anymore so all of that XP was wasted. I realized pretty quickly that the Hyperphysical Shotcaster was the answer to the problem here, and from that point on I never looked back. I did try using the .45 Automatic and the 1911s with Custom Modifications and One in the Chamber, but that was mostly because I was itching to try those new cards with a gun-toting Guardian. I settled on the Practice Makes Perfect package with Vicious Blow after abandoning my Blue Joe dreams (which, to be fair, didn't take long because it was terrible) and the rest of the deck list pretty much fell into place right away. Moving on, I'll cover a few of the alternative upgrade options I tried over the course of the campaign. The elephant in the room here, of course, is this card:  Pathfinder: A free move every turn on a slotless asset is extremely good, and in this campaign which stretches your action economy to the limit it must be even better, right? Well, yes, it is incredibly good when it hits the table, but this deck is already running six 4-cost assets and one other 3-cost asset heading into the third scenario, and later on it wants two more 3-cost assets in the form of the Grisly Totem, and all of these assets are high-priority. If I wasn't playing the totems then Pathfinder probably would have made the cut, but as it is, I felt they were more crucial to the overall success of the run. Here are a few other upgrades I tried:  Cryptic Research: I added this to try to combat all the hand destruction effects in "Without a Trace", and it was pretty good but it only offered temporary relief. Grisly Totem was better because it could both help restock a depleted hand and also prevent the loss of cards in the first place. I put this card into Joe's main deck too, since I don't like putting high-XP cards into his hunch deck. The reason being, there's no way to search or tutor from the hunch deck so you could easily go a whole game without getting any value from your expensive cards. Eidetic Memory: I mostly used this on Cryptic Research to keep my hand stocked, but since Joe has so many other Insight events it was actually pretty good for picking other things depending upon the situation at hand. I've always liked this card but the Seeker card pool has so many great XP cards that it's hard to make it fit most of the time. Mind over Matter (2): When you absolutely, positively, must Breach the Door! It also helped Joe pass a few of the Agility tests in Fortune and Folly back when I was doing it as the second or third scenario (and it was especially good in the Owner's Office with Breach). It was a pretty wild ride doing it that early, but also surprisingly doable if you build towards it with tricks like Fine Clothes to ensure you can recruit Isamara. Orphic Theory: I tried this out with "Dead Heat" and "Without a Trace" in mind, and it's quite good (blanking a treachery for four turns is actually a really long time) but it was yet another asset, and Realitycollapser was all the treachery tech the deck needed. Before I move on to Kymani's deck I'll give an honorable mention to one of my  Delay the Inevitable goes into the hunch deck, then when it appears and you have one of your two copies of Dynamite Blast (2) in hand you throw the stick over your shoulder and slow-mo walk away from an explosion. It was too inconsistent, of course, but Delay the Inevitable does have some real potential with Feed the Mind (3) in a Big Hand Joe deck. Kymani Jones  In contrast to Joe, Kymani's deck only went through one major revision. It started off without Leo De Luca or any of the other extra-action tech, instead focusing on the Trick trait.  Friends in Low Places: By choosing the Trick trait you can immediately tutor Backstab, Sneak By, and Pilfer from the starting deck. The Prompt, Clever, Experienced, and Swift upgrades (not necessarily in that order) are the ones to grab here, turning this card into a seriously powerful enabler for the rest of the deck. Chuck Fergus: I've actually never played with the big Chuck but this smaller version is a very solid card. I was really impressed. Easy Mark: With the Clever and Experienced upgrades to Friends in Low Places, you can search nine cards deep and place them all back on top of the deck in whichever order you like. This lets you stack Easy Marks so you can chain draw them, plus it's a good card to choose anyway to offset the cost of having to pay for the cards you draw.  I didn't include Breaking and Entering or Cheap Shot in either version of Kymani's deck because basically, on Hard, their stats are too low for them to be effective. I found this surprising because I expected B&E to be a natural include, but it was too inconsistent to justify. If I'd taken Lola Santiago earlier it might have worked, and I did try adding it late in the campaign via Adaptable, but yeah, that base Intellect of two is just not good enough (especially since you can't commit any Agility icons to the test). The Trick deck had a lot of potential, but I'm sure Kymani isn't the best fit for it so I'm looking forward to playing it again sometime. After switching over to the Leo De Luca version of the deck, the next refinement I made was with regards to the choice of Evade Assets.  Suggestion (1): I had two copies of this in Kymani's starting deck for a long time. It feels really, really safe to have that extra point of skill over the +2 on Disguise, but I eventually cut it because the deck just had too many assets in it (and I was running it alongside Disguise). Blur (1): This one fits the theme of the deck perfectly with its extra action proc, and I tried to make it work, but its +1 skill bonus was simply not good enough. Disguise: As I mentioned in the first post, if you can only take one of these three then this one makes the most sense. Its bonus is good enough and its secondary effect is valuable, plus later on you can move it into the market deck to free up room in the main deck. And with that last comment, let me segue into the main topic of discussion for this section:  Underworld Market: I spent dozens of hours playing with this card and I never got to the point where I felt I was using it properly. I originally bought it with Kymani's starting XP, so I had it from the first scenario onwards, and it took me a long time to realize it wasn't really necessary to get it that early and, in fact, it was really holding the deck back. By that, I don't mean that it's always incorrect to pick it early, but in this campaign it was, for two main reasons: 1) Kymani's job was primarily to manage enemies and expose concealed cards, so they didn't need the extra flexibility it provides, and 2) it put a lot of extra pressure on their resource economy (having it in the starting deck was another reason I switched to Leo De Luca (1)). Underworld Market essentially lets you have a larger deck without suffering the main disadvantage of having a larger deck, namely diluted draws. I found it hard to include Thieves' Kit in Kymani's base deck because they already had too many assets, and they didn't need to investigate until late in the campaign anyway, but that single card basically turned them into an effective clue gatherer. Adding TK and offloading Disguise and Pickpocketing and all the situational cards made it possible to refocus the deck while still having access to that extra support and/or utility, resulting in an overall more flexible and efficient deck. I think the best cards to put in the market deck are ones you do want to play, but you don't need to play right away. In Kymani's case, the highest priority card was usually Disguise, but Dirty Fighting and Pickpocketing (2) (both copies) were also cards I wanted to have in every game, at some point. I do wonder how it would feel to have weapons in the market deck for a fighter Rogue, because they're generally very high priority assets, and while you're guaranteed to find any one card within five turns you can often find one quicker if it's in your main deck (not to mention you can mulligan for it too). Kymani suffers a bit for having a smaller Illicit pool than some other Rogues (I assume they can use guns on Standard, but they're really not viable on Hard without a lot of support) but that's something that will only improve as more cards get released. As it stands, the most common cards I purchased from the market were Disguise and Dirty Fighting, and while Pickpocketing (2) was nice to have, it wasn't nearly as useful for Kymani as it was for Winifred Habbamock in my Return to The Path to Carcosa run, where it generated cards and resources in the double digits in every scenario. It wasn't as good for Kymani mostly because, as usual, it was yet another asset which had to be found and paid for (though at least it didn't cost an action to play) and it wasn't more important than Leo, Stealth, LCC, or The Moon (and later, Lola and the Ornate Bow, in some situations). And the risk of drawing Agent Fletcher at the wrong time is a real thing and has to be accounted for, so having PP in play but choosing not to use it for that reason is a pretty huge waste. Looking back on it, I wonder if UM was even worth purchasing. Here are the reasons I took it: 1) It enabled more level zero card swaps for On Thin Ice and Curse of the Rougarou. Specifically, Kicking the Hornet's Nest x 2, Refine x 1, and Embezzled Treasure x 1, any two of which could have been swapped in with Adaptable, but not all four. These cards were used to maximize XP gains for the deck (and provide bonus resources, which were mostly useful for Fortune and Folly). 2) It provided access to Hidden Pocket, which allowed Kymani to have the Ornate Bow and a TK in play at the same time (or two LCCs). 3) It provided access to Thieves' Kit for Fortune and Folly, a scenario with a massive number of clues. 4) It allowed the main deck to include "I'll take that!", which helped their action and resource economy. Addressing each of these points in reverse order, "I'll take that!" kinda sucked and was rarely played in the short time it was in the deck due to a lack of triggers, Thieves' Kit was excellent in F&F but was never played in any other scenario, Hidden Pocket sucked because TK was only needed in F&F and it also required another asset to be in play, and enabling the extra level zero swaps for the two filler scenarios was... actually pretty important. So, when you include the fact that it provides reliable access to Disguise and Dirty Fighting, and you can purchase one of the useless cards simply to commit to a test (something I did a fair bit over the course of the campaign) was it worth its 4XP cost? I think the answer would have to be yes, it was worth taking for all of that. My mistake was spending 4XP to upgrade Pickpocketing, and I'm starting to think the base version would have been a perfectly fine pick to meet the Illicit card threshold while still being viable to play due to the existence of Fence.  Fence ended up being a lot better than I was expecting. It was great for unclogging a hand full of assets or otherwise freeing up an action to do something more useful. Like Pay Day and "I'll take that!", it's basically an economy card so it's better to keep it in the main deck rather than the market deck; it doesn't really do anything by itself and it feels pretty bad to pick it over something which actually provides some kind of functionality. With the XP saved from Pickpocketing (2), I think Relic Hunter is an obvious choice. It fulfills the same role pretty effectively, allowing you to play the second LCC as soon as you find it, and its tutoring effect can provide both card draw and resources if you select a resource generating card. Hidden Pocket is a very poor substitute for getting a second LCC into play because it requires too much setup (I didn't do it even once throughout all of my test runs). I could have probably saved another 1XP by using Tool Belt over Stylish Coat, which was a decent card but not an important one.  I actually didn't test this one out at all, but I could have swapped it in with Adaptable when I grabbed Thieves' Kit, and it would have prevented a TK from being discarded by Ornate Bow if I didn't have a Hidden Pocket ready for it. To finish off Underworld Market chat, I can envisage a deck that doesn't run it at all, but instead has a TK or two in the main deck along with Lockpicks (1) as an enabler for "I'll take that!" This deck would need an early Lola Santiago to make the Lockpicks viable, but it could then also run Breaking and Entering as an additional trigger for ITT. This would shift the deck's focus a lot more towards clue gathering and it would probably be really effective, but I didn't consider testing it at any point because I was building for the campaign or, more specifically, for "Dead Heat", "Sanguine Shadows", and "Without a Trace." Also, I'm not sure Kymani is the best fit for cluevering anyway because their reaction ability is fairly action-intensive (in setup and execution) so if you focus on gathering clues you're probably not not getting much value from it, in which case a different investigator would be better. Here are some of the other upgrades I tried along the way:  High Roller: I tested this one out when I was doing Fortune and Folly early to try to get an edge on some of the scenario tests, and I thought it would be good with Kymani's reaction ability too. I liked it, and it combos pretty nicely with Stylish Coat, but you need to be able to absorb the occasional loss of three resources to really get the most out of it. Or, in other words, you really need to be a high roller to play this card. Hot Streak (4): I used this for a long time during testing as a replacement for Faustian Bargain, and it was pretty much the only time Kymani enjoyed a resource surplus, but I eventually (and begrudgingly) decided I could get by alright with just FB so I took it out to free up a heap of XP. I do think a slightly modified version of the deck could take it again, but for the final run I went without it. I might as well mention Easy Mark here too since it's basically the only other viable XP resource generator. I brought it up earlier when I was talking about the Trick version of the deck, and it was good in that one but pretty bad in the current version as an alternative to Pay Day because it took up too many deck slots, its draw effect couldn't be controlled, and it provided fewer resources. Delilah O'Rourke: As soon as I decided to go after The Last Blossom I thought Delilah would be a shoo-in to abuse it to its fullest potential, but it turned out that Alice Luxley and the Ornate Bow were enough. Momentum: This was really great for taking advantage of Kymani's reaction ability (and also very useful on the F&F tests) but I dropped it due to lack of deck space pretty early on. It could probably find its way back into a version of the deck with Underworld Market (to relieve some of the slot pressure). Here's a few level zero cards that didn't make the cut:  Quick Thinking: This card performed really poorly in the starting deck, which shouldn't have been as surprising as it was because outside Kymani's reaction ability and/or Disguise, it was difficult to boost it consistently. I don't think it would have fared too well later in the campaign either, what with the abundance of tokens with big negative modifiers, and the other issue was that there wasn't enough room in the deck for both it and Honed Instinct, and HI was by far the superior choice. Quick Getaway: This was a new card with Evade written on it so I wanted to test it out. It was pretty underwhelming and I'm not sure how it could be good. Maybe with Chuck Fergus (2), or Dirty Fighting? Lone Wolf: Another good Stylish Coat combo piece, and it can provide a lot of resources in a long scenario like F&F, but the first few scenarios felt like they had a few too many spots where both investigators had to be together, and it's always a bit more complicated when one investigator is doing the lion's share of the enemy management. Also, you know, it's an asset. And here are a few cards I evaluated in my mind after finishing the run:  Borrowed Time: I'm a big believer in playing to the campaign, and it struck me that this card might have been really good at the end of Congress of the Keys. Taking a really long turn to knock off as many of the decoys as possible (and get some hits in if you're lucky) seemed like a good strategy, so being able to bank an extra three actions the turn before you enter the tower would have been useful. Likewise, I knew Ace in the Hole would be handy for mitigating the Tablet token's effect in that scenario too, but I didn't really appreciate how good its extra actions would be for straight-up fighting the boss until my final run (I hardly spent any time testing that scenario once I realized I'd have a million allies). I wonder if this card would have been useful earlier in the campaign to bank extra actions from time to time. I played with Honed Instinct's "Force of Habit" upgrade (gain two actions instead of one) a lot while testing, taking it much earlier than when I did in the final run, and its main downside was that while you can always make use of one on-demand action (otherwise you wouldn't choose to play it) you can't always make good use of two. Having the option to bank the second action shores up that weakness, and you can probably do some interesting things with Pay Day and Calculated Risk. All In: I can see one copy of this being a good addition to the double LCC version of this deck. In the early game you can use it to dig deep (a 5-card draw is honestly very deep, but it would be fine at 3-4 too) to find your important cards, safe in the knowledge that Agent Fletcher wouldn't make an appearance, and in the late game you could have plucked all of the weaknesses out of your deck with LCC searches to ensure you get maximum value. All In could enable a "power turn" with lots of commits, or you could use all your extra actions to simply get a lot of work done. In this campaign, the Wellspring of Fortune could also eliminate the Auto-fail token, and Sure Gamble would ensure you could draw the full five cards. The latest taboo for it makes it remove itself from the game after it triggers, but a single use still justifies its cost. The Red Clock (2): This card does everything Kymani's deck is trying to do, but I never really considered it because the accessory slot belongs to LCC, and running Relic Hunter for it effectively brings its cost up to 7XP. I've yet to play with either version of it (The Red Clock (5) being its final form) but I'm sure it's sweet. Finally, back when I was initially testing out ideas for absorbing all the damage and horror from "Without a Trace" (before I decided to go for TLB) I purchased Charisma and took the ally rewards from the two standalones to save on XP.  Doing this means you also save a couple of deck slots (but your deck size gets increased by two, which isn't great) but in the end, allies that have stats Kymani can use are much, much better. Lola Santiago is hard to beat. The Investigators So, I just talked about their decks, but what of the investigators themselves? Joe Diamond doesn't have much going on outside his hunch deck, but that's fine because it is a pretty interesting and powerful ability. He tends to get a bad rap for being underpowered, but he still has full access to the Seeker card pool so he'll never be truly weak. When I chose him I was looking forward to using him as a flex cluever/fighter, but I honestly don't think splitting your focus like that really works in two player games. It could be that he wasn't the right pick to flex with, or it could be that Kymani was a lot stronger at enemy management than I expected so I eased off on his fighting kit too soon, but it really didn't feel like I could get much use out of his Combat stat when there were no decent weapons available to him. He was actually really effective as a fighter in "Dead Heat," but as the campaign progressed his blue card pool simply couldn't scale with it. And that's to be expected since he only has Guardian-2 access, but I do think he could contribute a lot more as a flex fighter in three or four player games. Still, I won't stop experimenting with a double flex two player campaign just yet. Kymani Jones has a really strong ability which is inherently fun to use because it's a gamble with a huge payoff every time. What surprised me the most, and this is something I've mentioned throughout this report, was that their Intellect and Combat stats were too low to be useful for anything, including all of the "add your Agility" cards. Kymani is very much a single-stat investigator (like most Mystics) but TSK really expanded what you can accomplish with that stat so while a good chunk of the Rogue card pool was off-limits to them, there were still plenty of interesting ways to build them. I still don't think it makes sense for Kymani to focus on clue gathering, but it does only take a few deck slots to turn them into a solid flex cluever. I chose to make Kymani the boss killer for this campaign (and with the addition of a single card, no less, assuming you don't count all the other extra action tech which makes the Ornate Bow viable) but if they had been paired with another investigator more suitable than Joe for such a job then they probably could have gotten away with doing a lot more clue gathering, and I am curious about how effective they would have been. The Campaign The Scarlet Keys was a bold experiment. Its nonlinear campaign structure really sets it apart from everything that came before it, and that part of it was definitely a big success. It felt fresh, and what I enjoyed most was how it provided an additional lever for adjusting the game's difficulty to your own preferences. Each scenario has a base level of difficulty (outside any of the time-based scaling effects you apply during setup) so you could choose to do a hard scenario early in the campaign with low-XP decks if you wanted to, either to claim a particularly valuable reward which you could then get more use out of, or simply for the sake of the challenge. The node-based travel mechanic and global setting gave the campaign a distinct Eldritch Horror flavour (just as the designers intended) which I also appreciated, and I loved the way this system was able to incorporate the standalone scenarios. I hope they find more ways of doing that in future, even if it's just by doing another Fortune and Folly, where the standalone is designed to fit seamlessly into the campaign. One downside to the system is that once you've worked out which non-scenario nodes are worth visiting and which aren't, you're likely to never visit some of them in subsequent playthroughs, so the map will probably feel smaller. I wanted it to be more dynamic than what it is, but that's mostly on me for thinking I could approach it like a computer strategy game. It's not that, and it was never intended to be. Regarding the other mechanics, I'd have to say concealed cards were an overall failure. I enjoyed the gameplay effect of not knowing precisely where an enemy was located—that aspect of their design was great—but the actual handling of the minicards became a real drag with the increased setup and breakdown time it added to every game, not to mention the constant shuffling of small numbers of cards during play. Concealed cards were also responsible for making so many of the scenarios feel incredibly tight. I assume that's because they expected a certain amount of action compression to be present in every deck, so they erred on the side of being too strict with the clock rather than too lenient. Making things slightly too hard rather than slightly too easy was probably the right call, but the time pressure felt pretty overbearing most of the time. I have mixed feelings about the customizable cards. In terms of design space, that was definitely something I'd never considered would even be possible, so props for exploring new concepts and all. And I do like the idea of upgradeable cards, but—and this is a big but—I want the text to be on the cards! I don't want to have to track what a card does on some other sheet of paper, I want the words to be on the card in front of me (why yes, it does bug me to no end that they don't physically print out new cards every time they taboo something). Customizable cards would work perfectly in a computer game, but unless someone invents some kind of digital paper for card games I'm forever going to be slightly annoyed whenever I put one in a deck. And I will keep using them, because some of them are pretty interesting and useful. The Keys mostly lived up to the fantasy of being uniquely powerful artifacts, but the variance in their double-edged sword design prevented some of them from being used more than once per scenario, at which point they didn't feel particularly powerful at all. The Eye of Ravens, for example, was more like a toy you could look at but not touch (and I'm not sure why they didn't go with a symmetrical reset effect for it, like "your base skill is zero for the next test you perform," but maybe that would have been too easy, I dunno, I just thought of it off the top of my head). The Wellspring of Fortune had the best balance out of all of them; you could use it liberally because tests happen all the time, and its reset effect could be cheesed with a throwaway test but it could still bite you depending upon the scenario's token effects. Narratively, the campaign didn't quite work for me. I love the tried and true formula of 1) you start looking into something strange, 2) you meet some colourful characters, 3) you gradually learn more about the threat and/or mythos, and then 4) you pull back the curtain to reveal the Ancient One responsible for all the chaos. The Red Coterie was well-realized, with a large group of distinct characters, but all of their stuff felt a bit too disconnected from the Outsiders. It felt like the Outsiders were a worthy adversary but they just weren't developed to nearly the same extent. In short, they didn't get enough screen time. And I know that's an odd thing to say when they were referenced in almost every encounter in the book and they were featured on so many cards across all the scenarios, but if I had to put my finger on why they felt undercooked I would have to say it was because the campaign lacked a sense of urgency. Yes, there was a time limit, but the mechanical freedom to go anywhere and do whatever you want kind of spoils the narrative of there being an imminent threat that must be confronted. The linear progression in all the previous campaigns really did contribute to the feeling of inescapable doom, of events building to a head, and I only realized that was the case because that feeling was mostly absent from this campaign. I definitely don't mean to say that a nonlinear campaign can't be tense, just that this one wasn't. Maybe there was too much freedom? I do hope they keep experimenting with nonlinear gameplay, because I really do think they're onto something there. I hope they keep experimenting and trying out wild ideas just in general, because taking risks is an essential part of building great games. Before I wrap things up, I'll just say a few words about some of the scenarios I chose for this campaign. The route I planned originally ended at Tunguska at the 34 time mark, but when I realized you have to actually pay the one point cost to travel to a standalone node it ended up going over time. I didn't bother adjusting it though, because the only consequence was that an extra Cultist token got added to the bag, and that didn't matter very much when I had the Coterie on my side. Dead Heat Great theme and a great challenge. This was something I could really sink my deck building teeth into, and I felt like I was learning something new about it each time I did a test run. Even after developing an effective strategy for it, each run still felt unfair, but in a good way, like I was at a significant disadvantage but success was nevertheless always possible. I've rarely felt my decisions carry so much weight as they did in this scenario, and it was all the more rewarding an experience for it. This was exactly the scenario I had in mind when I said earlier that I enjoyed how the nonlinear campaign structure lets you choose your own level of difficulty. Dealings in the Dark This one wasn't part of the final run but I did spend a lot of time testing it. I ended up swapping it out for Dogs of War, which was about the same level of difficulty, but Dealings has one memorable part at the end where you have to run through eight or nine locations to reach safety, and this is how I discovered Join the Caravan, which turned out to be a great card throughout the rest of the campaign. Sanguine Shadows This scenario had the best use of the concealed card mechanic out of all of them by way of a strong narrative connection. Hunting for La Chica Roja, finding her, then going again was a lot of fun because the stakes were high (access to the bonus part of the scenario) and there was always the chance you could get lucky and find her right away. The hub-based location layout was simple but effective, and I liked the way the target mechanic was repurposed for the battle against The Sanguine Watcher. Curse of the Rougarou Like I mentioned in the report, I had never actually completed this one before. I expected it to be a cakewalk due to how old it was but some of my early test runs got bogged down with non-elite enemies and hazards, and it put out so much damage and horror I ended up having to make a few deck adjustments just to handle the variance. It really does show its age, design-wise, with an underdeveloped narrative (compared to later standalones) and an overly repetitive gameplay loop. The locations felt needlessly punitive too, but I did like the non-elite enemy design (the Swamp Leeches were unique). I chose this scenario along with On Thin Ice purely to be able to throw more XP at "Without a Trace", but the better standalone XP trove would have been The Eternal Slumber, which offers 8XP for +3 Time (though it would be much harder to claim all of it). I'd already done that one and written about it in my Carcosa report though so I figured I'd try something different. Fortune and Folly This scenario is a master class in game design and it's probably my favourite one in all of Arkham Horror: The Card Game. I love the setting and the theme; a casino trying to stack the deck by manipulating reality itself, one man's hubris and grand avarice leading to his inevitable downfall, a daring heist amidst chaos and interdimensional monsters running amok. It's fantastic, and it's also one of the most mechanically impressive scenarios they've ever made. There are a lot of tasks you can undertake, but each one is compartmentalized in a way that makes it easy to understand so it doesn't ever feel like you have an overwhelming number of things to do at any point. This design also pays off when developing a strategy for it, and with deck building; you can approach things in a methodical manner ("Ok, I've worked out how to do that task, now for the next one") and each individual task you complete leads to a material reward (in the first part, better progress, and in the second, VP). The alarm level mechanic is a great way to simulate rising stakes, and it offers a way for enemies to be threatening in non-combat situations. Avoiding the staff, moving into the restricted area and proceeding towards the vault—a place you're really not allowed to be—it feels like you're in the deep end in terms of your progression through the scenario, and also physically (there are a lot of locations between the vault and the front door). The whole experience really does live up to the popular culture fantasy of pulling off a classic heist, and all of the gameplay mechanics are more engaging due to that narrative link. Without a Trace I felt like I was talking this one up throughout the entire report as some near-insurmountable challenge of epic proportions, but then the actual run went so smoothly you might have wondered what all the fuss was about. I swear though, it was really hard! And even in some of my test runs with near-final versions of both decks I struggled to finish it cleanly. The main problem, as I alluded to early on in the report, was that both investigators had low Willpower so they were susceptible to Secrets Lost hollowing out their hands, which, if it happens early in the game, leads to the run rapidly spiralling out of control. Having fewer cards in your hand (or on the table) makes it harder to deal with all of the other hollowing effects, compounding things in a really bad way, which is why I included so much tech to manage two specific encounter cards. Early on in testing, when Kymani was using the standalone ally assets, I had my mind set on getting a different resolution to the campaign where you join the Foundation as a permanent cell, but to do this you have to tally up a bunch of things you've done for both the Foundation and the Coterie, and if you've received too many resolutions that favour the Coterie you can't join the Foundation. One of the easiest ways to get a leg up here is to throw Aliki's whistle overboard at the beginning of this scenario, in which case... Agent Quinn has your back.  You get to add Agent Ari Quinn to your deck during setup, and she's obviously great for Kymani. I thought I could get by just fine without Aliki and I spent a lot of time trying to prove it but, alas, there's simply no substitute for recovering a hollowed card every turn. I also realized you can game things a bit with Memory Variant by using Aliki's ability to return an event and then replay it (like Decoy in the boss battle during the finale) so she ended up being even more useful. If Aliki gets defeated during this scenario you save one point of time in the resolution but you still get to take the whole Coterie team with you in the finale, and I was doing that originally to hit the 34 Time mark, and it also stops this scenario from counting against you in the tally at the end. I decided to just go with the resolution where you get dumped anyway though, because it is a bit funnier. Congress of the Keys I enjoy how all of the finales in this game take place in some extradimensional locale, and I also like the ones where you build your own landscape, so on those counts this scenario succeeded for me. Where it fell down a bit was with its use of concealed cards; I liked how they worked on the boss fight (it's probably the second best implementation of the mechanic after Sanguine Shadows) and also the puzzle leading up to it, but I just really don't like actually handling them all the time. The other issue with this scenario is that it was just plain easy, and I'm not sure if that's because I had all the allies with me or whether it's just naturally like that. I only did it once on Standard (with the non-friendly start) so I didn't really get a feel for it either way, but the last few campaign finales have been a letdown in the difficulty department (Edge of the Earth's had a great design but, yeah, not much of a challenge). I imagine it's hard to balance when some players min-max their way through the campaign and arrive with every last bit of XP, but I would love it if the default mode for finales was closer to the brutally punishing end of the spectrum. Final Thoughts The Scarlet Keys has more content and more replayability than any other campaign in the game. There are three full scenarios which I didn't include in this run, one of which—Shades of Suffering—I haven't even played, and by all accounts it's the hardest out of all of them. I did flip through its cards though, and at first glance it seems like another take on "The Wages of Sin" from The Circle Undone, which is an extremely difficult scenario even by today's standards. The next time I play TSK I'll definitely try it out, but I'm not rushing back right away because when I think about replaying this campaign I can't help but think of all the minicards to sort through and organize, and it's all just a bit... deflating. Still, I did enjoy it a lot, and the reason I wrote this many words about it is because I love playing this game and talking about it. If you've managed to get this far then, hey, thanks for reading! And if you've come this far but you've never actually played Arkham Horror: The Card Game before, then you really should try it out. You'll probably like it. Kalko fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 2, 2023 06:48
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one thing that i'd like to see for this game going forward is some concept of a cycle, in the style of other lcgs. There's something very neat about building with a less than full set of cards that will get slowly diminished as the card set grows larger. Maybe even some sort of randomizer where you only have access to a subset of the released expansions.
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Oct 2, 2023 07:12
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Kalko, you are making Scarlet Keys sound really cool. I have other campaigns to play first but I was putting that one to dead last due to people seeming generally disappointed with it. Thanks to Doom of Eztli for the truly cinematic climax: Two of us were down to our last health/sanity, so we resolved to flip Act 3 and then resign. Little did we know that flipping Act 3 would shuffle the locations around into a straight line, putting us at the farthest space from the exit and making the goal to resign! Worse yet, the elite enemy was between us and the exit. Thankfully, we got extremely lucky and were able to use rope to rappel three spaces ahead, putting us right by the exit. Mission success!
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Oct 3, 2023 15:27
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Yeah, I think I appreciate TSK more than I actually like it. I'm glad they tried something new and there is some good stuff in there, it just doesn't come together in a satisfying way. The scenario design is mostly good, I just really hate handling the minicards all the time. I'll update the OP at some point since a bunch of stuff in it is a bit outdated. Now that most of the expansions have been repackaged, which campaigns would people recommend for new players? Carcosa? Edge of the Earth? I know Edge is probably the best campaign but its investigators are non-standard, and TSK's nonlinear design offers a pretty different experience to all the others so I'm not sure I'd recommend it as the best entry point.
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Oct 4, 2023 00:22
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For campaigns, Path to Carcosa is the best starting point. There aren’t any extra frills to the mechanics, the theme and campaign design is more compelling than Dunwich, and the scenario design is a little more consistent. What is a little tough is that the Dunwich investigator set has so many foundational cards in it. I’m almost inclined to recommend a revised core, Dunwich investigator box, and Carcosa campaign.
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Oct 4, 2023 00:45
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I'm playing through dunwich 3p with a brand new player and I think it's a good intro actually. If you know the heights the later campaigns achieve dunwich is kinda eh but if you don't its a cool cthulhu story with a lot of interactivity, a train that gets yeteed into the cosmos, and gambling! The low xp per scenario is kinda nice for new players bc they get to think about the cards they add with more granularity. Maybe the best campaign for new players out right now is edge of the earth though I think bc it experiments in a fun way with encounter design and consequences.
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Oct 4, 2023 03:56
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Yeah, Edge is the best experience this game has to offer, I just think each investigator's deck building is maybe too unintuitive and/or complex for new players and there might not be enough cards in Core + Edge to support it, but then my perspective is pretty skewed. I agree with Anonymous Robot that Dunwich does have a lot of staple cards, and Carcosa is the best straightforward campaign. Maybe I should include all three, but qualify each recommendation.
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Oct 4, 2023 05:08
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I haven’t played since Circle Undone. What’s good for a solo player that’s been released since then?
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Oct 4, 2023 05:14
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 There's a halloween spooky forum this month, and Pragmatica says we can temporarily move threads there if we want! If you guys would like this thread to go on a scary trip to the halloween land, let mods know and we can do it no problem.
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Oct 4, 2023 06:01
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RandolphCarter posted:I haven’t played since Circle Undone. What’s good for a solo player that’s been released since then? Oh ho ho my friend you want to look at what Dirty Fighting can do for some of your Agile investigators
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Oct 4, 2023 06:31
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Anonymous Robot posted:For campaigns, Path to Carcosa is the best starting point. There aren’t any extra frills to the mechanics, the theme and campaign design is more compelling than Dunwich, and the scenario design is a little more consistent. As new players (3 of us) who have only played Dunwich and Path to Carcossa (and a handful of the standalones) I'm inclined to agree with this. We all felt that Dunwich was the weaker campaign, it was fun but we were not as hooked as when we came out the back of Carcossa. And there's nothing in Carcossa that really threw us or was too complicated. But I would agree the Dunwich invesgiator set has a much more sensible set of cards for new players. Edit: Also after Dunwich, only one of us had any interest in replaying it. After PtC everyone was "but what if?" "we need to find out what happens when we do..."
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Oct 4, 2023 08:37
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Impermanent posted:Oh ho ho my friend you want to look at what Dirty Fighting can do for some of your Agile investigators Hot drat what a card. kaffo posted:As new players (3 of us) who have only played Dunwich and Path to Carcossa (and a handful of the standalones) I'm inclined to agree with this. I never played Carcosa because my lgs never stocked the deluxe, just the packs. Might just grab that now that I only have to buy two things.
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Oct 4, 2023 10:10
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