Aha! I've got an idea!

Here's an 'aura of sleep' for you: "While the Dweller monster is on the board, all investigators have a focus of 0."

That'll make them want to kill it quick-sharp, I reckon.

Thats genius, Great idea!

Edit: You could also give them the chance to be delayed, or skip their turn (as they take a nap) so that they can move a skill slider. Or seing as you already have it delaying people, have those take a stamina damage as it plucks out their eyes You can tell that i Think that it's eye feaster move should have more to do with feasting on eyes

Saldre you've given me some excellent ideas to work with. I am piecing together what I hope to be a rather chaotic, but not overly complex mechanism.

I like your idea that when a gate opens this would trigger an event. I think the event in part will be a card draw. This card will have a movement symbol sequence like in Kingsport. If a Mythos card has that same movement symbol sequence then the event on the card effects the first investigator.

When a new gate opens the current event card is mixed back into the deck.

For each full rank of Doom Tokens that Yoggy has it results in two event cards to be drawn, or three. Yog-Sothoth at three is getting rather close, and Arkham is splitting apart in time and space.

I only want the first investigator to be effected, so that way own one player needs to keep track of the additional effects, and each new first investigator gets to cringe when his turn pops up.

Thecorinthian's idea for having to resolve all three encounters Outer World encounters in sequence is a grand idea.

Having the Dweller reduce all investigator's focus to one while in play is a really nasty idea. Good one at that.

How about Feaster of Eyes, rather then Feasting on Eyes. Is there someway that the Dweller might cause blindness for the first investigator, or void like darkness descends on Arkham? Perhaps the first investigator must encounter the Dweller, with a major negative to his/her combat check, for one round.

A herald inspired by my discussion with thecorinthian! keep in mind i did this instead of doing my essay at midnight, so its probably unbalanced as hell, but thats where you guys come in and help me fix it!

The Idea is that this guy forces you to evade monsters because they are just too horrible.

He has two flavor moves.

The first, when he is in play, monsters are always face up until AFTER you decide to fight them. This realy wouldnt be an issue for most people playing, who might remember this or that monster. But i think it might be very annoying if you forget about a peculiar monster, or stuff like that. Its inspired directly by thecorinthian's conversation with his friends. When this guy's in play, you shouldnt be able to describe monsters at all

The second move is dedicated to the legens surrounding this horrible figure, anybody who tries to figure it out turns crazy. But thats pretty much what happens to anybody that tries to figure out anything in this peculiar world... but still, the quote from the story is pretty cool so i think it should be up here.

This is where it gets messy.

If an investigator fails his horror check, he is HORRIFIED. and i mean so horrified he bolts. After failing a horror check, he must take an evade check. If he succeeds, good for him he's gone, he escapes and the combat ends. If he fails, well he turns his back on the horrifying creature and it hits for full damage before finishing him off.

Now if he succeeds his first horror check, but is unable to kill the monster during the round.... Well, he gets the great idea to run away again! an investigator MUST attempt to run away after each combat round he fails to kill a monster in. If he succeeds, good for him. If he fails... Well, He's probably Knocked out.

the Third and final ability is made to keep a track of all this stuff, and is what i think makes his herald realy horrible. but its probably overpowered and this is where it needs fixing. I dont know if i am able to get the message across. The idea is, if an investigator fights the monster he just ran away from, he gains a yellow sign token. If he had done this three times, he is devoured when he tries it the fourth time. He can get rid of yellow sign tokens by paying clue, which meshes well with his very first ability.

Sooooo what do you guys think?

Goshdarn... how do i post this horrible thing!? if anyone can help, i will be glad to post a better version of it heh. Also suggestions on rephrasing any of these abilities would be most welcome. Thanks again.

Ah, Saldre your herald gave me a good laugh, in a good laughing way.

Well, with regards to the last ability, how about this: anytime an investigator evades he/she takes a yellow sign token, and if an investigator every has four he/she is devoured? A yellow sign token, can be exchanged for a madness card.

When an investigator evades and fails after a combat he failed, does this mean the monster dealt his full combat damage twice?

Not being able to see a monster's flip side is an idea whose time has been long in coming. I recall a rule suggestion in which, all monster's would normal begin play this way, and the only way to reveal a monster's stats, short of fighting would be to spend one clue token. The green monster's would have to be treated different.

How about instead of not looking at their combat side... you draw another monster and fight it... i.e. there is a DHole... you engage it then draw a random monster i.e. a Cultist or Visa Versa... most people remember what the combat side is!

Keeping the monsters face-down is a great idea, although you need to point out that it's ok to look at green-bordered monsters during the monster movement step.

The fourth ability is setting off alarm bells in my brain. I like the idea that the herald hands out yellow sign tokens as punishment for something (and god knows we need something for those tokens to actually do ). But this idea of keeping track of which monsters you failed the check against might not work. One of the key design laws in AH is that there's a marker or a counter or a token for EVERYTHING, even the ephemeral 'game states' such as whether gates have been explored, and whether locations are temporarily closed. This herald requires that players remember what they failed against - which might seem easy to we gentlemen of intellect, but that's not really the point. I think that if I fought three of four monsters one turn, and then a slightly different combination of monsters the next, I might not be able to remember exactly which horror checks I failed, and usually AH cards just don't require you to 'remember' things. (Except for the Dark Man of Wizard's Hill thing, which is just stupid).

Not sure how to fix it though...I'll put some thought into a replacement ability which would achieve the same thing.

Also: I'd keep the ability names short, if I were you. They should be called just 'Abnormal Possibilities', 'Stark Fear', 'Shaken Consciousness' and 'Shapeless Paws'. You'll free up a lot of space on the card, and the font size might even increase a bit, which is always preferable. Also, you should add "such-and-such phase:" to the starts of the abilities. I think in this case the it'd be "Movement phase:", "Any phase:", "Any phase:" and "Movement phase:". Not everyone does this, but I tend to find that it's a huge help in understand abilities at a glance.

( Also: I don't want to keep clogging up the thread with only-slightly-different versions of the same heralds, so if anyone wants the latest version of The Dweller in the Gulf, it's on my Flickr photostream here: www.flickr.com/photos/30396818@N08/3476239388/sizes/l/ and the monster marker is here: www.flickr.com/photos/30396818@N08/3476239534/sizes/o/ )

Cool, I will get to work on it and also think up of an ability that relates running away, being devoured and getting yellow sign tokens

thanks for the input, the new version will be up asap

Edit! The new version is done and it looks quite nice, though I do miss the flavor quotes... they were very, very apropriate!

MsGamura, I'd do that but I want them to be able to see a relatively relieable evade check, seing as with this herald thats going to be an important part of the game. With random monsters, they lose even the chance to figure out if they can fight the monster at all! Also, this ability is realy just for fun I expect fully some players might remember most stats, but some might forget, some might be confused, some might make mistakes It doesnt have to be game breaking, just something to laugh about eventually (or be horried when you forget that a certain monster has magical or physical immunity )

Saldre said:

I hear ya. I always try to cram some flavour text on to my heralds/monsters/AOs. Sadly it does have to be the first thing that gets removed if there's too much text on the card.

I always wondered why the AOs didn't have background stories (or lore or fluff or whatever you want to call it) on the back of their sheets, like the investigators. I mean, you're meant to be able to pick AOs randomly, but that's true of investigators too, isn't it? You could even make the same case for heralds and guardians, which don't really need to be double-sided.

Argh, i had finished my comments on the new dweller now i have to right them again cause they somehow got deleted...

bah! ima just say that the final version is the best so far and i think its perfect as is, I'd try it out after i figure out to print out monster tokens.

On a side note, can anyone retake The High Priest and re-post it in a more printer friendly format? I'd love to be able to play-test it. Or just play with him.

ps: Some people speculate that the High Priest is an alternate form of Nya... I must make a new mask monster now....

hmmm... how do I get it to fit? lol

Ouch! This is so postmodern it's practically cannibalism. I think once we've started making heralds to describe other forum users, it's the beginning of the end...

Investigators not being able to trade items or money is the worst part of that. Although the Newspaper is closed, so it's not like anyone in my group would have any money anyway, and therefore probably no items either.

The Message said:

Has anyone thought about having 1 herald connected with each Ancient One?

Nyarly = Haunter of the Dark

Yog = Lurker at the Threshold

Hastur = King in Yellow

Shub = Creature of the Moon-lens

Cthulhu= Crawling One {Dagon?}

Ithaqua = ??

Glaaki = ??

Freebird said:

Yes, this is actually how the first few custom heralds were created, to match up with a specific GOO. Of course, in those days we only had the King in Yellow to go off of. As things stand:

Nyarlathotep: Dark Pharoah

Yog: Dunwich Horror

Shub: Black Goat of the Woods

Hastur: The King in Yellow

I also play Hastur with the Green Flame, but thats just cause its a rough combo. I've always associated Ghroth with Azathoth, but I know others will debate me about that. Other GOO/Herald combos that have been fan created include Yig/Set, Glaaki/Green Decay, Ithaqua/Wendigo, Tshathoggua/Zvilpogghua

Following up on several successful playtests of the Dweller in the Gulf, here is the Worm That Gnaws In The Night!

Ooops - ok obviously the monster is meant to be a 'Spawn' monster, I just forgot to add the symbol.

thecorinthian said:

I think it's a cool idea... But a little too easy, even though it's kindof a pain, and the reward against it is pretty good... Why not up the toughness by one when you add the spawn icon?

Avi_dreader said:

The Worm's toughness has no effect on the game - sorry if this was confusing, this is the problem with such complex abilities. What I should have done is replaced the toughness symbol with an asterisk symbol, like I did with the Dweller in the Gulf.

The 'low toughness' is irrelevent because you can't defeat the worm directly using combat checks. Attacking the Worm does nothing until you've accumulated enough successes to remove all the stamina tokens from the sheet.

Or was that what you meant? Maybe it does need to gain Stamina tokens faster (or start with more of them).

thecorinthian said:

Just a simple question, since it increases the difficulty of all skill checks the difficulty of both the evade and horror checks is 2, yes? Obviously the combat would be unaffected.

I like this, it's got the right amount of interaction and distraction to make it a threat without being impossibly difficult.

The Message said:

Yes, although I had forgotten about the Evade check - maybe that is too difficult. It's quite harsh to make people fight the Worm if they don't want to fight the Worm, since they're very unlikely to be able to kill it. One earlier version of this monster was Elusive (with the same modifier). I could change it back to that. On the other hand, since the Worm will occasionally suck up other monsters and so may keep the streets a bit clearer anyway, it's not that bad that it's a serious obstacle in itself.

There were also two variations on the first part of the Gnashing of Teeth ability. In one version, the Worm simply caused everyone in the neighbourhood to have a -1 penalty on all dice, effectively 'cursing' everyone nearby; in the second version, the Worm actually did literally curse everyone in the neighbourhood when it moved into that neighbourhood, and people had to get rid of the curse as normal. I'm still not sure which ability is the most fun/interesting, although obviously some of them are much more difficult than others.

thecorinthian said:

Hmmm... I didn't quite understand the creature before. It would make a difference if you raised its combat damage to four and gave it two stamina, or even three, (that way it would make a formidable adversary in combat). As it is, it wouldn't be too hard for a player to use overkill against it and just take it out asap— I know that's what I'd do, try and take it out in two or three rounds, as things are right now, that shouldn't be too difficult. But make the bastard tougher, and then :'D then it'll survive on the board longer (giving it more of a chance to eat other monsters) and will be a more serious threat when investigators challenge it, not just an easy pushover.

Heee heee hee... I just had such a good game with the base set :') I'm in a good mood from it. So good in fact, that I'm considering playing against The Black Goat tomorrow ;'D yes. I do believe I'll do just that.

Avi_dreader said:

By 'two stamina' do you mean 'two toughness'? It already does two points of stamina damage.

If you meant 'Toughness' then I still don't think you've got how it works! Maybe I need to re-phrase the abilities.

Raising the creature's toughness will make no difference to combat against it. "(Combat check successes do not cause this monster to be defeated and do not end the combat)". The only positive effect of attacking the Worm monster is that you remove stamina tokens from the Herald. You can remove any number of these - so if you roll 6 successes in one round of combat, you'll knock six stamina tokens off the herald, but that still won't remove the Worm monster from the board. The Worm will then hit you for two stamina, and you'll get a chance to attack it again, and so on, just like a normal combat. The only way to kill the Worm is to accumulate enough successes that the herald runs out of stamina tokens - and as soon as that happens, the herald and the monster both vanish back into the box, never to trouble you again. And everyone is blessed

The upshot of this is that the first few investigators who enter combat with the Worm will probably have to evade or get sent to hospital after a couple of rounds. The herald will start with maybe eight or ten stamina tokens, so any one investigator is unlikely to be able to "kill the herald" before the monster's stamina damage kills them.

You might be right about raising the combat damage though, because as usual Michael McGlen makes nonsense out of any attempt to balance the monster. McGlen has Fight 6, +3 from a Tommy Gun (because of phys resistance), but -3 from the Worm's combat modifier, so 6 dice in total. With 6 dice he can expect 2 successes each round on average. He's taking one stamina damage per round so he gets six rounds of attacking, which will (on the numbers) inflict 12 successes - more than enough to kill the starting worm if you've got 4-5 players. Hardly very dramatic. Anyone apart from McGlen of course will be munched down in moments.

Hello thecorinthian,

Excellent work on the Worm that Gnaws. I can see it being quite colorful.

Since, you have a knack for these new monster types here is an idea that I've been putting around.

How about a herald/monster that is of those mad flutists that appear now and again in Lovecraftian tales?

My general take is create a monster that is extremely tough, but outside of maybe being a Pied Piper of corruption, the investigators can play around him.

The trouble comes if an investigator has to fight the monster. I see this monster as a type of summoner, but what it has summoned doesn't come into play until it is defeated. The longer the monster is in play the more minions that will flood Arkham (monster limit immune?), once defeated.

He ought to be dealer of madness cards for those that encounter him, if it goes poorly.

Any takers...?

thecorinthian said:

Oh. I did mean toughness, and I didn't realize the creature would work like that. I'd be worried about retirement exploits though— perhaps you could make it have an ability that does not allow investigators to retire. A couple things. It shouldn't have one blood-drop for toughness, it should have one of those red stars, or an X. Could you do that, or photoshop it? Second, and also more relevant to the way it plays, you might want to make it a fast monster. This will add to the terror of players when it is used as a herald :')

::Grin grin grin:: I got a great idea (in my opinion) for a Herald (with a Nyarlathotep emphasis). I've been working on it for the last hour or so. I'm going to go eat lunch, but I should be done with it soon. I don't think it's *too* complicated to play, but it's *quite* powerful, thematic, and fun— I think. Granted, my idea of fun is being scrapped off the wall as a gibbering bleeding mess ;')