by special guest Marius Hartland

Today we take a look at the penultimate chapter in the Summons of the Deep cycle as the latest Asylum Pack, The Thing From the Shore is setting sail to a gaming table near you. As with previous previews you may encounter some references to previous Asylum Packs and the Call of Cthulhu Core Set . Card numbers should help you on your research and the Support Page and Forums are a good place to follow up on your investigation.

While playing Call of Cthulhu you send your characters to stories to accumulate success tokens. This isn't a journey without peril though. Several icon struggles will challenge your characters both physically and mentally as they try to piece together the sinister plot, or try to further it in the name of the unnameable. Previous chapters of Summons of the Deep took a magnifying glass at these struggles and The Thing From the Shore focuses on the final step: The Skill Check . Just when you think it's safe to be committed to a story again...

Dominating the Environment

"Nebulous Ooze" is a rare beast in that it doesn't come with skill at all. However, it can shape itself into whatever you have had waiting, allowing you to commit a character on your turn after the other player has made his choice of defenders. The Core Set has "Guardian Elder Thing" (F109), for example, which doesn't have much offense based icons, but can deliver wounds to all characters committed to the same story. It's nice to see if they send in something with more toughness than you can handle before you send the "Elder Thing" in. And always keep them guessing. Besides, you commit the replacement ready, which allows you to commit on their turn again. Ready a committed Yog-Sothoth ( ) character and they can even be committed to two stories at the same time this way for some trans-dimensional multitasking.

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It Bring Tears to My Eyes

The Syndicate ( ) has always been the politest of factions. Hardened criminals? They've always rather used intimidation and distraction as opposed to brute force. Exhausting someone here, lowering skill there (which could take on a new level of usefulness in a “skill matters” context), but hardly ever do they resort to actual violence. You can't blame them for you stumbling into that Shoggoth just because your eyesight was somewhat hindered, don't you? The Syndicate now has an option for permanent disposal with "Tear Gas". Few must kill characters have low enough skill to be decommissioned with it out of the box, but with Core Set characters "Clover Club Bouncer" (F65) and "Clover Club Torch Singer" (F66) these numbers are a lot larger. Syndicate is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

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Spawning More Madness

This is a card that wants you to get in the thick of things. Previous struggle based cards didn't care if you where opposed or not, but "The Spawn of Madness" wants you to commit so you entice your opponent to stop you, but still you need to outskill them. That probably will mean some of your characters will get hurt in the process. And you use up this card from your hand. Nothing says more than “This is a trap!” than refreshing all domains at the end of your turn though. The previous Asylum Pack had "The Terror of the Tides" (F67) that named the pack and has great ambush value. Signposting your trap is bound to make someone nervous. And it makes for great bluffs.

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Based on the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and his literary circle, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game takes two players deep into the Cthulhu Mythos where investigators clash with the Ancient Ones and Elder Gods for the fate of the world. To learn more about Call of Cthulhu, visit our minisite .