Yeah, I asked the same question in my random questions thread. The way it's written doesn't literally say that it needs to be discarded, but the first sentence or something seemed to indicate to me that it's supposed to be a new one every round. (I think, I don't have the book atm, but thats how I remember it). Seems pretty boring if it doesn't. Anyway, we played it that I, as overlord, just discarded the top token at the end of my turn, but still showed it to the heroes. That gave them enough information to figure out which ones were left, but kept things interesting. And they only spawned 2-3 spiders or so (which didn't really impact the game, they never assisted Ariad and were killed pretty quickly).

Maybe that also should be submitted to FFG?

I do not think that is how it is supposed to be played.

At the start of each round, the OL secretly looks at the top objective token of the stack. If a hero enters an empty space adjacent to a faceup token of matching color, the OL reveals the top token from the stack, and places a cave spider on the faceup token.

For the rest of the round, the revealed token remains faceup in the OL play area...

...Once all tokens have been revealed, shuffle the tokens back together to create a new stack.

It doesn't say that at the end of 4 rounds you reshuffle the tokens- it says after every token has been revealed , meaning you do not cycle the stack/ remove tokens until a hero spawns a spider from the top color. The sentence in the beginning " at the start of each round " is only there to specify when the new top token ( if any ) takes effect. That is, it does not remain the revealed token for one complete round from when it was revealed, just until the end of the current round, and at the start of each round, the OL checks the top of the stack again. If the token is not revealed, it clearly stays on top until it is.

That seems pretty boring, since it isn't that hard to deduct which token is on top with a bit of luck, so that it never ever gets triggered (like Indalecio mentioned)

Boring in that the token may not change much, maybe- but it's no easier to deduct than if the token is revealed to the heroes every round- and the only way the heroes gain information is by risk, not just waiting. For example, if you're discarding the top token every round, the heroes know (without ever stepping next to anything) that one of the tokens is 100% safe on round 2, and that 2 are 100% safe on round 3, 3 on round 4, and then after 1 round of uncertainty, that repeats. However, if you're keeping tokens on top of the stack until they're triggered, the only way a hero can determine whether or not a color is safe is to step near it . Sure, on a round after the blue token has been triggered you know that blue is safe- but the damage has already been done, and you need to repeat that process for the other 3 tokens.

Also, the heroes really have a hard time avoiding stepping next to at least 2, probably 3 of the tokens. The OL is only really out of luck if white is on top first, and even then you can use monster placement to direct the heroes.

In our play of the map, we (I was a hero) managed to not spawn any cave spiders after steps next to blue and red, so we had determined that the token was white or green. Ariad was already in the ritual spot, so that actually made the next few rounds very interesting. I spawned a cave spider by stepping next to a green, and then everything else was a risk for the rest of the quest. We killed Ariad just before she hatched, piling on the damage during the brown/brown round.

i like Zaltyre's explanation!

sorry, a litte bit off-topic but could you please give me the last sentence of the sepcial rules section (Ariad is immune to...).

i quess there is another translastion issue in our german rulebook

i like Zaltyre's explanation!

sorry, a litte bit off-topic but could you please give me the last sentence of the sepcial rules section (Ariad is immune to...).

i quess there is another translastion issue in our german rulebook

"Additionally, while she has at least 1 fatigue token on her Lieutenant card, Ariad is immune to all conditions".

In addition, don't forget that there is errata for this quest: "Special Rules, first sentence of third paragraph: Should read, 'While Ariad has at least 1 fatigue token on her Lieutenant card, she cannot move, be moved, or be activated.'"