Ok, Avi, I'll play, but this is not tested at all. Also, I know you think Nyarly should have his own Herald but what if he is no more than the sum of his Avatars?

Also, Veet; nice heralds!

Veet said:

re: Obediah Marsh

YIIIIIKES! It's like a mini-Atlach. That being said, good job :') Just froym eyeballing it, I think it looks *very* tough, and I wouldn't be willing to try it without preselected investigators :') But hey, that's what pre-selected investigators are for, right?

rovdjuret said:

COOL! Also, this is the first herald that I can think of that uses Barred :') I really liked this. Are you going to make some more Avatars of Nyarlathotep? I hope so :'D Hee hee hee...

Here's a question though, what happens if an investigator does an encounter in Dunwich, Innsmouth, or Kingsport?

It was kind of hard to find the right wording (english is not my native language), but what I had in mind was that unless you are in "Arkham proper", you won't get banned. At first I wanted to punish those investigators hiding out in Kingsport, Innsmouth and Dunwich, but then I thought "why bother?" People aren't getting outside of Arkham city limits nearly enough anyway.

But I think that something should be added about not removing the Haunter by closing the right gate. That sounds reasonable. Another cool touch would be to rename the abilities to match the names of the two Robert Bloch stories connected to the Lovecraft story: "The Shadow from the Steeple" and "The Shambler from the Stars". I'll get around to it.

As for other Avatars of Nyarlathotep, judging from the Herald thread alone there are far greater lovers of Nyarly than me (I'm more of a H*st*r guy myself). Counting the Keziah Mason/Brown Jenkin heralds, I think half of the creations here concerns Nyarlathotep. I haven't even read the Masks of Nyarlathotep, let alone played or game mastered it... But I have read Dreams in the Witch House and I have some weird idea about an The Black Man herald. Something about draining clues from the board and making "deals" with players. And maybe something else. But I'll need to flesh that one out.

Conceptually the Black Man herald sounds exciting :')

Okay, so my next question about how your Haunter herald operates is if the investigator is only cursed for drawing an encounter that specifically states to draw a barred card, or if this always happens when there are no barred cards left?

I want to know exactly how the intended ruling is (then I'll try to suggest a way of wording it so the meaning is clear).

Avi_dreader said:

Oh, I see the ambiguity now. Yes, I actually missed the second interpretation altogether. My intention is this: If an Encounter (specifically) instructs you to be barred and both barred-cards for that neighbourhood is already out amongst the other players, you are cursed. It should be quite the rare occasion. I think this herald should be at par with the Dark Pharaoh in difficulty.

But what I haven't realized until now is that if you have enough investigators, they can "soak up" the barred-cards. Until the terror level changes that is. But maybe that is enough of a nuisance, I'll guess I'll have to test this sometime.

As for wording, I'd gladly take any help.

::Sigh:: okay, so I'm still a little confused about your intent ;') should I just assume that I should interpret it in the way that will make it most challenging for investigators and leave the fewest loopholes?

Personally the way I'd have it work is if an encounter card bars you (rare), you are cursed and barred, otherwise just barred (if a barred card is available). Does that sound okay? I'd get rid of the minus one sanity since the occasion is so rare and it's such a negligible penalty anyways (and it takes up card text). Or I'd raise the sanity penalty to 2 or 3 ;'D that'd sting.

Avi_dreader said:

That sounds like the way to do it. But wouldn't that be too harsh if one would play with only AH+CotDP? I imagine one would be cursed all the time? Maybe cursed unless paying x nr of clues?

rovdjuret said:

Nah. Even if you're only playing the base game and CotDP, your odds of drawing the barred encounter would be negligible. Maybe one investigator would be cursed per game? Maybe two at most? Okay, I have a bit of schoolwork to do, but I'll try to write something up tonight.

An investigator who ends an Arkham Encounters Phase in a location is Barred from that location if a Barred card is available.

If an encounter instructs an investigator to be Barred that investigator is also Cursed [and loses three sanity].

[Or Two sanity, or no sanity, that's for you to decide].

Haunter of the Dark does [you said do] not count against the monster limit, returns to the sky if killed [this would imply that gate closings return it to the sky], can not be claimed as a trophy, and never goes to the Outskirts.

[Okay, I'm not clear about what you meant with this part, does of the Dark Make the Sky adjacent for *all* flying monsters, or just itself?]

If all:

If Haunter of the Dark is in the Sky, unstable locations and locations with Cursed investigators are considered adjacent to the Sky.

If only Haunter in the Dark:

Unstable locations and locations with Cursed investigators are considered adjacent to the Sky for Haunter in the Dark.

If Nyarlathotep is the Ancient One, the first Mythos card draw is Blackest Night . [Players can figure out how to do this without it being explicitly spelled out].

You may use multiple Heralds for Nyarlathotep with cumulative effects. [Word it otherwise and it's just going to lead to confusion since this card is titled Avatar of Nyarlathotep and it would be reasonable to assume that it only works with other cards titled that way, well, for someone who isn't seeing it in the context of these forum entries anyways].

Or if you just want to make it so you can use any number of heralds with *any* Ancient One word it like this:

You may use multiple Heralds with cumulative effects.

[Anyhoo :') I said I'd do it today, probably, and it's still today, 11:32 PM California time. I'm looking forward to the corrected version]

Err, sorry, for the first line of text, "Barred from that neighborhood," not location.

Avi_dreader said:

I tested him 3 times so far with random investigators. One I threw out after playing because the probabilities were all messed up (2 monster surges by turn 3 and they kept coming, actually reduced the doom track to zero at one point because of that). But the other two times he did exactly what i wanted him to do, I was forced to fill up the Fed track on innsmouth for the first time in any game and at one point I had 12 monsters running around innsmouth. Of those two I won one (mainly die to thew pressence of Patricia) and lost one.

Haunter of the Dark, Mark 2:

I reworded the first paragraph slightly - the effect will be the same but sometimes there won't be an available barred-card. I skipped the idea about sanity-loss, it was just an early idea that didn't really fly. It detracts from the real purpose of this herald - constantly being on the run.

I thought it was fitting that ALL flyers should move with the Haunter. It was more simplistic and more fitting to the name "father of bats" which the haunter is supposedly called according to the Malleus Monstrorum. It also gives players an incentive to try to lure the haunter to leave the sky.

There were so much more room on the herald now that I added an extra combat bonus for Nyarly - not that he doesn't need it. I also feel reluctant to give up the "Avatar" terminology. It seems to fit halfway between AO and Mask.

And technically, this is still weekend, though not by much.

So here is another, meant to make the aquatic monsters hop around on the board a little more than they tend to by forcing them out and flooding locations making more aquatic areas. The last power is a boost to a custom GOO that I just posted over in that thread.

Got a simple question regarding custom guardians - Do you print them? Or just place a laptop or computer screen near the gaming area? And if you do print - is it just simple paper/printer or smth more complicated? =)

I have a bunch of photo paper that wouldn't get used otherwise so I print them the highest quality I can and cut them out, they look good that way and the only reason you can tell them from the official ones is the gloss on the paper.......and the double sided print.

@ Veet

I wasn't so crazy about the GOO. I feel like it's primarily final combat oriented. The only part of it that significantly impacts the game is the rising terror level with environment draws (which in my opinion would go with a herald better). I felt like as a whole, the card was designed to be more thematic than to have impact on game dynamics (I just don't see why I should print that out and play it instead of one of the GOOs I already own— how does it really make the game experience that different?) The picture was great though :')

Now, moving on to the herald, which I liked quite a bit more (which is why I'm responding in this thread and not that). I think the aquatic cup is a pain, but also a good idea :') however aquatic monsters are still pretty weak, you might want to give them a toughness boost of one or two, or a combat modifier reduction, or something.

Next problem. I can't remember if there are two or four aquatic location tokens (did Innsmouth also come with them?), but what do players do if they don't have tokens (or if they want to leave their tokens on the marked neighborhoods. If you want permanent flooding, players are going to have to use a different type of token (maybe brood tokens, or whatever they have at hand to improvise with), so you may not want to specify "aquatic marker" unless you want to cap it at 2 or 4.

If you really want to tie this herald to your GOO, I suggest you remove the flavor text from your GOO (there's a reason they don't normally include flavor text, there's no room to put it in), and think up another interesting and appropriate ability for it.

::Shrug:: you could make the aquatic Warlocks physical resistant too. That'd add to the real world terror level when one was drawn :')

And this is why we share, so people can point out stuff we should have seen in the first place.

I'm going to untangle Bastan from the GOO (Rlim was an early stab at a something that I skewed to fit the ID and I think I skewed too much originaly he made Shoggoths aquatic). To that end I'm removing the last power from Bastan and replacing it with an aquatic monster booster. I'm thinking +1 toughness, that makes them mostly 3 toughness with the exception of Deep One Hybrids (2) and Moonbeasts (4) and perhaps the addition of ambush?

As for the aquatic tokens there are 4 overall. I tend not to use them to mark Unvisited Isle and River Docks because it's just too simple to remember. When testing this herald I used glass beads, though I rarely used more than 2, in all fairness I tested with only Innsmouth (this herald is a terror in Innsmouth) and not Dunwitch which might change the frequency of flooding an area. One could always use Yellow Sign tokens, as I mentioned in another thread they don't actualy do anything and if you are using this herald you aren't using KiY herald so they are free.

As for Rlim he's going to get an overhaul. His power needs scraped and I would appreciate suggestions, as it's late and I'm tired (in the appropriate thread of course). I'm thinking that I'm going to use Eihort, Ghatanothoa, Quachil Uttaus and Shudde M'ell (in my oppinion the most interesting Goos of the lot) as benchmarks.

Ooo! Aquatic ambush! Exciting! :'D

I can't say much now (I'm supposed to be doing homework).

So it seems you intend potentially infinite flooding. Good :'D

---

Ghat, and Quachil 'ey? How about every time an investigator defeats an aquatic monster they need to draw an Innsmouth look card?

Also, if you're going to give aquatic monsters a significant power boost, you may want to remove the aquatic monster cup, creating a separate monster cup is a pain, (if you think that this might result in too few aquatic monsters, you can make shoggoths, protoshoggoths, and stationary monsters into aquatic monsters-- although if you make shoggoths into aquatic monsters you'll need to clarify if they still move twice).

Here is the latest incarnation. I threw out the aquatic cup and altered the saturation of aquatic monsters using the heralds powers, I chose monsters that are supposed to be aquatic based on Lovecrafts descriptions anyway. I play tested this one this afternoon and was pleased with the result, the game ended with Dexter Drake suddenly surrounded by 5 monsters in a flooded independence square.

Whaa haa haa! I like it I like it I like it! ;'D Terror, flooding, extra buffed extra aquatic monsters. Excellent!

Okay, a comment and a question.

Comment: do you think it's necessary to reduce awareness modifiers by two *and* give ambush? Shouldn't the former be enough? (I'll play it either way, but it seems like it's a bit excessive).

Question: How would a player insure that their monster surge monsters go onto aquatic locations? I draw monsters one at a time placing them unseen on predesignated locations (which is how you're supposed to place monsters, I think, I'm not sure). How would you have players weed out aquatic monsters, and put them on aquatic locations, and what would you do if that would result in an uneven monster placement (i.e. 3 monsters on one gate, zero on another)?

So. Did Dexter survive? ::Laughter::

Oh, also, shoudln't it be Master of the Crabs? (I'm basing this off a google search, I'm not sure).

I think this is much more balanced than Obediah (and much more fun) although I haven't played it yet. Ahhh! I can't wait :'D

I also threw this together, it annoys me that the yellow sign tokens don't do anything and I always thought that the King in Yellow as the first herald really looked like it was the first so I gave it a little overhaul. He does everything he did before but now the yellow sign tokens do something.

I haven't read your herald yet, but initial response, awesome picture :')

Okay, I read it, and now I think it's not much of an improvement over the original. You might want to make it three or four times the number of yellow signs. I mean, really, how many yellow signs go on the terror track? 0-5? That's not alot of extra draws. Especially for terror levels 1-3. Also, you said "spacejust." I think I'll houserule something like your idea for when I play the King in Yellow herald. If I remember :')

I'm kindof sad, I got so excited when I saw your picture. I love Hastur boosting heralds. He used to be so badass (before I understood how to kill him easily by deliberately waking him with low terror), now he's just ass.

It says in the rules "The players should decide where monsters will be placed". I like playing it random but I have a friend I play with often that holds onto that statement tightly.

I was on the fence about the awareness modifier, it makes the shoggoths really scary but the deep ones are easy to evade otherwise.

Dexter did survive, he was the one character equipped to handle it with dual shrivels and David Packard in tow.