I'm going to finish creating fix heralds for the base set's ancient ones sometime in the next week or so. I need two or three pictures though (I think I'm just going to recycle The Black Goat of the Woods picture for Shub, since I'm going to mostly redo that herald so it's actually fun). I need something serpentine or reptilian looking for Yig, and I need some sort of snow monster for Ithaqua (I would settle for a wind monster, but I really want something with snow in the picture), Yeti, Wendigo, whatever. If anyone could find me some pictures (and maybe save me a few hours), I'd really appreciate it :') (and yes, I have the ideas set down, I just need pictures to go with them and to put the text into Strange Eons).

Hi, Avi.

You can find a lot of Cthulhu images in:

www.sectarios.org/foro/viewtopic.php

Greetings from Spain.

Seeing as I recently (read: yesterday) purchased Dunwich, I thought I'd give The Worm that Gnaws another shot, now having the appropriate Ancient One.

And it does not pull any punches now. It didn't help that on the first turn of the game, the mythos dumped a second Chthonian into the streets, blocking one of my investigators temporarily. The cultists moving hurts a bit, and elusive means you'll have to dedicate somebody to hunting them down, unless you get lucky and start with an item that grants a bonus to the evade check.

Sadly, I can't chalk up a victory against this scenario. The monster surges got out of control and Arkham was torn apart. I only managed to slap three seals down. It doesn't help when I burn through clues and keep rolling 4 or lower. Still, I do enjoy playing this herald. I suspect that I probably need more time to figure out Dunwich before I try this again.

DeadGuyWalking said:

Heee :'D I got excited just reading about it. But I agree, you should spend some more time understanding Dunwich. It's a major leap between the base game and Dunwich (I remember back when I first got it I was completely disoriented and had trouble figuring out what to do to win). What I would do if I were you is take out Kingsport (just the board, not the components) until you master Dunwich. That way you can focus on it more without having to dilute your attention with Kingsport exploration.

Avi_dreader said:

Well, I didn't have the Kingsport board in play. I was just using the base and the Dunwich boards. Although, I had taken out the cards from Kingsport.

I played a few games before that match to try and get prepared. First was against Tsothoggua. It eventually woke up and I gave up at that point. Next was Glaaki. It went to final combat, but I managed to defeat it at the last second. Then I tried Shudde'Mell without a herald. It woke up as well without any monster surges having happened (too many gates open at once,) and I almost had it beat, but almost isn't good enough.

Clearly, I still have a good deal to learn.

DeadGuyWalking said:

Heh... :') You know to take madness and injury cards instead of going insane or unconscious (most of the time), yeah?

How many investigators are you using?

Poor Shudde... He's too easy to beat in combat... Which is part of why I gave him those herald bonuses. They put a little more calcium in his spine.

Isn't Tsoth a pain? I remember finding him very difficult when I first played him. Hell... He's still very difficult! He's a good challenge though, and as you noted, nearly impossible to beat in final combat.

Gate limits with new expansions can take some getting used to (since it actually becomes a significant problem, unlike with just the base board)...

Avi_dreader said:

I am taking madness and injuries now. Although, I'm confused as to if you still end up delayed. I think the intent is that if you take a madness or injury, you shouldn't lose the turn that would normally be spent for healing. But then with LiTaS, that doesn't seem to have as much point. Perhaps I've missed a ruling somewhere.

When I play just the base, I run 3 investigators, but when I add another town, I find I need 4 to keep up. Even still, Dunwich does get close to the too many gates open at once limit.

And Tsoth is decidedly annoying. Can't trade in those trophies you are collecting, and you need both if it goes to final combat. Completely aggravating.

On another note, now that I can use the Dunwich Herald, I tried it out in a Father and Son match. I managed to win, but it may have been more due to my team layout than my skill (Gloria, Mandy, Monteray and Darrell.) And that game was the first I've played where I actually managed to get conditions up. But that was probably because I was looking for them with Darrell. Not that they helped much. Velma's Gratitude is nice, but only if you draw the events where you have to pay for healing. Anything else is not so helpful. And Coded Messages is probably good for midgame, but not so great when you've got 5 seals and an investigator coming home next turn for the 6th.

But still, I think there's a lot I'll like with this expansion.

DeadGuyWalking said:

Actually, Rare Book Collection is pretty good.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Rare_Book_Collection

Yes, there's no delay for a turn of healing if you take a madness/injury after being knocked out.

Do you like the new monsters? :')

Avi_dreader said:

True, but you have to find the Necronomicon, then take a 1 in 14 chance of drawing the correct card to activate it. And then give up said tome.

As for the new monsters, it's a mixed bag. Color Out of Space is wickedly tough. Pump up your will for the horror check, and you might not have enough fight left to take it on. But I suppose that just spending clues makes it easier. Rat-Thing is kind of easy, although the forced discard can be nasty, if you don't carry some junk items. Mummy is kind oftough. Wraiths are tough, but at least you can evade them easily. Goat Spawn is a bit easy, but then again, not every monster is supposed to be a killer. Star Vampire is deadly if you aren't prepared for it, though you could say that about pretty much all the new monsters in this set. It's not a bad mix, and there's definitely some good ideas.

As for the Dunwich Horror itself, I've yet to try fighting it. So far, if it shows up, I just hope that it doesn't add more doom tokens.

Here is an extremely rough draft of a Werewolf affecting Herald. I think the werewolf is an extremely underestimated creature, and also underutilized, so here you go. Keep in mind this is very rough, as I just did it up and it's pretty late here. I look forward to polishing it up with suggestions though!

Again, suggestions are not only welcom, but necessary for this one. I borrowed the Day/Night changing events from Corinthian. Thanks Corinth!

Admiral142 said:

:'D I like, but since you're making a werewolf herald, I guess I'll tell you the stuff I was planning for mine so that you can incorporate some of it into yours if you'd like.

First, critique: its too easy to pick off the cultists as they are now, during the day. Suggestion: make them elusive. Second suggestion (so that they'll see more play), make Cultists and Werewolves not affect the monster limit (so they'll spawn even if the monster limit has been reached). Third suggestion: to save some space, remove the doom token signs (they're pretty, but unnecessary). Just place a doom token on the herald at night and remove it (or flip it) when it is day.

Okay now to tell you a few details of the one I was working on: I was going to use a lycanthropy marker (and yes, I was also thinking about using the brood token, although now that I think about it, a doom token might make more sense thematically i.e. your doom is to become a wolf at the full moon, as opposed to you have an Eihort parasite that turns you into a wolf). Ah...

If an investigator is damaged by a werewolf, give them a lycanthropy token. The effect of a lycanthropy token on an investigator is that it would cause them to automove like a werewolf whenever a crescent sign was drawn on a mythos card. This could cause another investigator to be damaged and infected. I was considering also having them be delayed in Other Worlds if the crescent was shown, since they would go off track and get lost (Other Worlds have moons, right?)

I was also thinking about spawning the original werewolf in the woods at the beginning of the game as an endless respawning monster.

:'D I hope you find some of this helpful.

Oh, right, and if two investigators are on the same spot as werewolves, roll two dice, the player with a lower roll takes damage. An alternative would be the player with a lower roll is devoured.

My Yig Herald :') I hope you liiiike. (I don't think anyone's going to make fun of Yig if they're playing with this). For the start of game instruction, just it randomly. I'm not going back clarify it :' it's obvious enough (I think) that you can remember it.

A direct link: http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Set.jpg

Heh heh heh... Remember my first herald? The Maskless? I've decided to make another Nyarlathotep herald (that can be played with her) that will give the newer masks strange bonuses also. I know, I know, you're probably thinking, but the first one was so hard! Well... Don't worry, this one will be harder and easier simultaneously (there's a bonus for the players— defeating a mask lets them roll one die and draw an exhibit item on a success).

Great suggestions, Avi! Here is an updated version. I added a consequence if all the investigators get turned into werewolves because as it was, it wasn't really a big deal to become a werewolf. What do you think, should there be further consequences? I was thinking of making it that if any investigator ever has 2 lycanthropy tokens, they are devoured and a werewolf monster token is placed at their location, or something like that?

Admiral142 said:

::Laughter:: I'm scaaaared ;') okay, first of all, you need to upload a higher quality image (there is fuzziness around the text and there shouldn't be). I save all my images as jpgs with the highest quality available to prevent that from happening.

Hoo... Okay, here's my problem with the Lycanthropy endgame ability: when I first saw it, it really scared me, then I thought it was kindof interesting, then I thought it's too brutal for small teams. Two player teams get two tokens and lose? Three three? Even four... Well... Four's not so bad. Perhaps you should make it so that the tokens can stack. Or you could make it so that this ability only happens to teams of 4 and up.

Also, add in what I said about werewolf transformations in Other Worlds causing delays (that's a significant penalty for players who gain the lunar curse).

Errr.... One last thing... The picture is driving me crazy (it looks like a plastic mask to me) even though I like it. Could you send me a link to the jpeg so I can try and play around with it in a photoeditor for a few seconds and see if I can hide its signs of plasticity? Or perhaps if you cut it out at the eyebrows (they look very fake— I was thinking of seeing what I could do to it by playing with the contrast).

---

Btw, the way I designed my ability, it actually was a big deal if all the investigators became werewolves (because they would be constantly moving around and injuring eachother, and of course, they'd also have have the delay problem). It's actually quite a nasty effect :') yours is nastier though (a little *too* nasty for small teams without some tweaking I think). But then again, maybe not ::shrug:: it would be an interesting challenge regardless :'D

Hi,

Let me know what you think

tibor

tiborvadovan said:

As I said before, I *love* this; however, there are a few problems.

First: spelling errors. Apocalypse, not Apocalipse, and in Mind Numb you wrote loose instead of lose.

Second: formatting. By breaking down the card into six sections you're making the card gigantic (while not adding much to playability).

Put the text from One Thousand Forms under the Start of Game instructions.

Visions of the Apocalypse, and The Price of Knowledge can all be grouped under a single heading: Visions of the Apocalypse (since it captures the essence of all three abilities). Besides, these are related in that they affect clue gathering.

Finally: put Mind Numb and Tainted Knowledge at the bottom (traditionally herald abilities that alter the Ancient One are the bottom text). Change them to Tainted Knowledge (it sounds more sinister than numbness, this also gets rid of the redundancy issue— you used the word Knowledge in two headings). You also might want to make it so that this is an additional Nyarlathotep ability, not a replacement (after all, he's still only a doom track of 11 with no physical resistance). Then again... Maybe not... The more I think about, the better balanced that ability seems (since the investigators that are the most likely to be able to hurt him quickly are typically low sanity, while the high sanity character have lower fight and tend to be spell oriented (i.e. affected by his resistances). Hm... I guess five rounds at most isn't so bad. Especially if playing with epic battle cards and clue gunning is essentially impossible against him anyways :'D good job.

I'm very pleased, I'm going to print out the final version.

Thanks for your valuable suggestions avi_dreader.

It looks much slicker now You really know what you are doing!

Let me know if anything else should be changed. Enjoy.

Regards,

tibor

ps: I changed "area" (in the original proposal) to neighborhood rather than location, as it makes much more sense in that way. If location was used instead, you could just simply choose to gun down the Mask first, and only then fighting the other monsters, thereby "easily" bypassing this ability if you actually needed or wanted to fight in that location.

tiborvadovan said:

For the left side of the text, it is really smooshed. Is it possible to remove the spacing between Messenger of the Ancient Ones and the line about “Use only” and Start of Game. If you are worried about it not looking differentiated, you could italicize it (I’m not quite sure how the formatting would go, it’s your call).

For the right side of the text:

Here’s a modified version of Nameless Cults:
Nyarlathotep’s forms are worshipped by innumerable Cults across the Cosmos. Non-Mask monsters [i’m not sure why you capitalized this] in the same neighborhood of a Mask monster gain +1 Toughness and Endless.
[basically, you can “many” “all” and “are” and should change the capitalization this might allow you to get “Endless” off of a line of its own]

For Visions of the Apocalypse:
Investigators reduced to 0 sanity or stamina gain 2 clues. This would be gender neutral and shorter, also, put a line between this and the part about simultaneous clue gaining— they are related, but separate paragraphs.

When an Investigator gains 2 or more clues simultaneously, put a random mask from the Mask Pool at a random location shown on drawn mythos cards. If you are unable to do so, Nyarlathotep awakens. [you could also say, If you can not, Nyarlathotep awakens— use whichever one fits the formatting better].

For Tainted Knowledge:

Make a line break between these two text chunks to further indicate that they are related but separate (i.e. that the clue devouring is a continual effect, not just something that takes place with the start of battle effect).

Investigators lose sanity equal to the clues in their possession when Nyarlathotep awakens. [afterthought: and can gain no more clues] Gender neutral.
Nyarlathotep devours investigators without clues; his attack changes to 'Each investigators loses a clue.'

One problem… Roland Banks is still immune to this guy. I hope that anyone playing against him, will have the common sense to deactivate his clue gaining ability during Final Battle. Hmmm… I put in an afterthought that should fix this (and a few other ways of gaining clues, like Rex Murphy).

As promised, Ithaqua's herald :') quick clarification, Crippling Winds does not use your focus (just in case you were going to ask that).

direct link: http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Wendigoherald.jpg

Hello,

avi: nice work on the Ithaqua herald.

Here is the new version. I tried following your suggestions. I could not reduce the space between "Messenger .." and the next line, that seems to be fixed in strange eons. I did rewrite some of the following text to make it shorter. I also added a line before each heading, I think it improves readability.

Your "afterthough" was quite important and fixes all possible problems with clue gaining in the final combat.

If someone feels something else should be changed please let me know.

Hope you enjoy it,

tibor.

direct link: img252.imageshack.us/img252/1717/thecrawlingchaosfrontfa.jpg

Wow. Just wow. I love it. I can't wait to print it and playtest it (actually, I like it so much, I might try playing it purely from memory before I visit the printer, which might not be for a few weeks).

As for the spacing, I realized that I suggested an impossibility when I was doing Wendigo (and came across the same issue). It always annoys me. But then I forget about it ;')

Here we go, I think we're getting closer. I changed the day/night mechanic based on what I think the Corinthian was saying, and I took out the vicious end ability. A couple other tweaks too. If you don't like the pic, have a better one, or would like to edit the one I originally had, you can google image search werewolf and my original image is one of the first that comes up. I agree, it looked pretty fake, but I really like how the werewolf looks like it's completely frenzied. Anyway, check out the new pic and see if it works better.

Admiral142 said:

I'm exhausted so, I'm just going to rush through this tersely. I want sleep...

Currently it sounds like infected investigators move like werewolves and deal an *additional* two damage if they end movement in the same space as an investigator. Is that correct? If so, that sounds like a fair penalty (and a strong incentive for not letting the town get overrun with other werewolves). One slight problem though... If all the investigators are werewolves too, they will not move on each others' spots unless they start a turn in the same space (and they probably won't be stupid enough to do that). You could fix that by having sanity reduced by one for an investigator every time they move as a werewolf. That'd be a strong disincentive against infection.

And am I reading this right, if an investigator takes damage from an investigator werewolf without it actually landing on their spot, does not become a werewolf? That doesn't make sense thematically.

Assuming you intend for infected investigators to have identical movement and effects with normal werewolves, you can shorten the Lycanthropy paragraph by saying that "During Mythos Phases, when [moon symbol] monsters move, investigators in Arkham with lycanthropy tokens move like werewolves and have the same movement effects." You don't need to restate all the werewolf damage rules. If they are copies, their damage rules and effects would be the same.

::goes into full English major mode::

There's alot of text on this card. While I enjoy flavor text, there may be a bit too much. Consider changing Horrid Infestation to Curse of Lycanthropy (it sounds better, in my opinion, while keeping the Horrid Infestation's flavor text, I think it has much more character than the latter's— oh, and the text will sound more formal if you change the word order slightly to "reveal a monster, half human, half wolf, I knew" etc. Otherwise I think it creates a fairly powerful image).

A couple other flavor text corrections/suggestions.

For The Breaking Dawn, don't use "Though" and "but." One or the other. Together it sounds redundant and slightly absurd.

For The Rising Moon, change the text to "At night the baying of the wolves intensified in anticipation..." The earlier version has circumlocutions, unnecessary intensifiers, extra words. I think an edited version works better, it keeps in the key sound similarity of at night and anticipation, it also doesn't build up a false sense of suspense (it's not just that we know that there are werewolves afoot, and what they do, but this is Arkham, it seems fairly implausible that A) the speaker is utterly clueless, and B) that the speaker would simultaneously suggest that the wolves were anticipating and that the wolves aren't. ::Shrug:: as it's currently worded, it just sounds too B movie to me.

Sorry if I sound blunt, but as I said, I'm really tired (I should have been asleep three, errr, four hours ago). Positive critiques: I do like some of the sound combinations in the first piece of flavor text, and I thought the imagery in the third flavor text was striking (I also felt that the new image is a *drastic* improvement— it looks slightly CGI though. Post a link to the original copy and I'll try to edit it (I don't have photoshop on this computer— just a crappy photoeditor) so it looks more in line with the standard game art style. I do like the picture, though I think it could be touched up by playing with contrast, enhancing the red tones, and blurring it a little bit. Hmmm... And maybe by stretching it horizontally (lengthening the toothy snout)

::Sigh:: I wish I still had photoshop... I could make that Werewolf much more disturbing looking in 30 minutes. ::Sigh:: what I wouldn't give for a decent photoediting program... Not money apparently ;')

Question: are cultists intended to return to the Woods if you defeat them at night? That's how the card currently works. If that's not the intention, it's going to require some wording tweaking.

Okay. I need to go into a coma now. G'night.

No... Wait... Must... Picsearch...

http://www.411images.com/images/games/screenshots2/Werewolf.jpg

http://www.designyourway.net/artists/werewolf-2.jpg

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4710007/HowlOfTheWerewolf-main_Full.jpg

http://www.omni-labs.com/images/Mike_WereWolf_347_400.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh164/BigRudeDogg1987/Werewolf.jpg

Hi,

Here is an Yog Sothoth herald.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome,

thanks,

tibor