Grudunza said:

Avi_dreader said:

Ha, no doubt.

Avi_dreader said:

I can safely say from first hand experience that a family of Baptists can be just as sanity draining.

Veet said:

::Laughter:: lose one sanity if you stay away, lose two if you go.

I updated the Cult of the Thousand institution. Now its trigger is linked to cultists and it can give you corruption.

Nice move.

Though, will it ever happen that the investigator did not killed the cultist at the encounter phase ? Why not doing this instead of having a combat with a cultist.

Combat with the cultist is not needed they only have to be present, also since they are elusive they will be sticking around a lot more, elusive cultists can be hard to catch with their -3 awareness.

Veet said:

I do not know how but I did not see that point that makes perfect sense

I tried to create my first Institution, to boost a little the Cult dynamics in Arkham. I tried to follow Amikezor (very good!) suggestion of using an Institution to create a mood for playing. I hope this is thematically coherent. Here we go:

As always, feedback is very welcome

I really like that, however there are few little things that could be clearer:

1) Who gets the Cult Membership at the beginning of the game? Perhaps you should clarify it so the First Player recieves a Cult Membership.

2) Under whispering in Darkness, you say it's a gift to the 'Church' - you should change that to 'Cult' as Church would be confusing with the South Church location - not a big deal, just a little one.

3) The rules for Curses/Corruptions are a little unclear. You could clarify it by having it read "If he is already Cursed, then he takes a Corruption." or "The Player must choose to be Cursed or take a Corruption."

Master Fwiffo said:

Hello Master Fwiffo,

1. The Cult Membership at the beginning of the game is randomly distributed. I'll clarify this on the final version of the Institution (at the moment, this is just a first draft)

2. I'll change it into "their Church", to avoid misunderstandings (the description of this Institution is "Church of the Black Goat", so by using "their" instead of "the" I should clarify any ambiguity"

3. An investigator killing a Cultist can be member of the Cult, or not. In case he is, he's Cursed (Shub doesn't like her devoted men to kill her worshippers), in case he is not, he's Corrupted (since the investigator is touched by an obscure power he doesn't have the skill to handle)

thank you for the feedback :-)

nice version of the goat cult

Julia said:

Ah, I understand number 3 now (though it took a couple reads to understand). You could clarify it by having it read "If an Investigator kills a Cultist, he takes a Corruption. If he is a member of the Cult, he is Cursed instead."

Master Fwiffo said:

amikezor said:

@ Amikezor: thank you ::smiling::

@ Avi: ::giggle:: ::purr::

@ everyone: thank you for the help with the wording. I'm updating the Institution right now and post it immediately after

Ok, here is the updated version, with some specifications on combat with Cultists / Maniacs

Just give Photobucket a couple of hours to update the preview of the image, as usual

Ok, third (and hopefully last) version:

@Julia what is the name of the pic that you are using it is very provocative.

skree said:

Julia's on vacation, she won't be back for a while.

@ Avi: thanks for telling our fellow cultist I was AFK for a while

@ Skee: the art was made by Katherine Dinger; not so sure about the name of it; on the site where I found it, it was called simply "Cult Dance"

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9274/oneofthethousandfrontfa.jpg

Trololo, a complete analisys of your institution is rather complex. Let's start from the beginning (I don't know if I'll be able to finish this right now, but at least, you'll have part of my critique to read at dinner time)

- start of the game: there is something wrong with this. I mean, Cult memberships suck, and being corrupted sucks even more, so I'll never have any of my investigators taking a Membership. Especially if the first gate opening doesn't give any doomer to the AO. Thematically, when playing I care only of two things: sealing, and keeping the doom track low. Hence, if there is an extra chance not to add doomer, I'll go for that. At this point you might leave optional for investigators to become members of the cult at the start of the game, but you should introduce some heavy penalty for not doing so, like: "if none takes a Cult Membership during set up, then all players are cursed" (which is a lot nastier) and get rid of the part saying that no doomer is added for the first gate opening. Even by doing so, you'll have one player taking the membership, but none else (corruptions are bad. I don't know how many games you played with the Black Goat official Herald - the only way to see how corruptions really work - but believe me, they are *bad*)

- initiation rite: this idea is thematically good, I like it. And the missing clues on the locations are compensated by those earnable by players during set-up. I'd probably modify it slightly with "if a player starts ..., then do not place the clue token on that location during set-up", just to preserve the initial distribution of clues as much a possible

- 6 clues for being devoured doesn't work that much. I mean, if I ever had 6 corruptions, I'd love to be devoured. Not only because a character with so many corruptions is rarely helpful to the party, but because many corruptions force you to draw or discard other corruptions. And as soon as the corruption deck is over, the AO awakens. So, killing a character with 6 corruptions is something good for the party. Lower the limit to 4 (and remove the part in which you reshuffle the deck. Corruptions over -> AO awakens) or 3. And not so sure why a woman can't be a Cultist as well. Shall we need to have hooves instead of our feet to be accepted as part of the community? ::laughter::

ok, gotta go. I'll try to comment the other part later!

You play for sealing, and being a member of the cult generates you additonal clues for a price. It generates you even more clues as you become closer to the other side. High risks, but with high advantages.

I know corruptions are bad, not all and not that, but mostly they are. The thing is when you discard corruption, you don't discard a token from your membership, so technically an investigator without any corruptions will be devoured if he'll be instructed to draw a corruption card with 5 markers on his membership card. And investigators with cult membership gain benefits from Sweet Corruption depending on number of markers on their membership card, not depending on number of their current corruptions.

Additionally, there is use of your markers from the cult membership if you'll decide to redeem yourself.

Child of the Goat is a cultist, just female.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Sorry, it is not. It's treated like a Cultist, but it's a Hexagon monster. This means it can be removed from the board by gate closing. Besides, it has the additional effect of delaying you on a failed combat check. But anyway, I was just wondering why you cannot have female cultists as well. There is a living proof of female cultist in the Dunwich Horror expansion: one of the investigator (Diana Stanley) is a "redeemed cultist". Just saying.

Besides, I read all the rest of the Institution. Honestly, have you playtested it? For me, it's broken. You should be able to push a little on some rules to win any game pretty easily

Let say all investigators start with a cult membership. They also have a +1 clue. Initiation rite makes them start in locations where they can have cult encounters, and they are delayed! So they can get a Cult encounter, thus they have starting clue tokens +2. Giving every investigator on average of two clue tokens as starting possession, you can have all your investigators ready to seal pretty soon.