Veet said:

Oh! Awesome! So now they don't go into vortexes (in Innsmouth anyways— they still would in Dunwich) they clog up Innsmouth with their hopping and croaking. Wheee heee hee!

I take off my imaginary hat to you :')

Really, it's excellent because it infuses potentially any Ancient One with a crucially game altering mechanic that won't make the game obscenely difficult. Unless it's against perhaps Hastur or Y'Golonac :')

Next Mask, The Black Man. Somewhat reluctant to the extra cards but I think it's worth it in this case. Too strange, what do you think?

A couple questions:

When a mask removes clue tokens from a neighborhood did you intend for that to happen only when they enter locations or locations and streets?

And not collecting The Black Man as a trophy does this include collecting the 2 clue tokens that you normaly would instead of taking him as a trophy?

Veet said:

Bad wording on my part. Streets AND locations, otherwise it will almost never happen. Also, I've no problems handing out 2 clue tokens to a player but it could be used as a clue-generator by an investigator with high luck, so no to that.

You should add that he "does not provide clues" in his description paragraph. 2nd paragraph of Dealings.

Instead of forcing players to dig through the unique item deck for elder signs, say "If an elder sign is drawn, discard it and draw the next card from the unique item deck." (there's no need to make an exception for Wendy)

I liked the obliterate clues sub-abilities :') but I think they'd go better with Shadowy Figure.

I'm not so crazy about the picture :' you could go for a non-literal representation of "The Black Man." Here's a decent Nyarlethotep picture. I wish I still had photoshop :' I could do something about the colors for you.

I also think Deal With the Dark Man is unnecessary (how often would it be useful anyways?) Try again :') (And please don't make it a card! I hate add on cards, there's got to be some other way of indicating that a deal has been made). Like you could place a doom token on the investigator that made the deal. Or investigators if you want a repeatable deal.

Also, something to keep in mind. By making The Black Man a permanent monster, you give players the ability to throw investigators into his mouth and respawn with new equipment. Not *too* much of a problem without elder signs, but still, exploitable.

Avi_dreader said:

I think this herald is excellent ! I just have two questions:

First, I am still very confused on how to understand the sentence:

"Aquatic monsters move on black to the nearest aquatic location, unless they can move to an investigator by normal or aquatic movement."

If there are just in a dry street area, how do they move when their symbol appears? Do they follow the black path one step ? Or do they "run" to the closest aquatic location (one move of several steps), following the black path and if there is an aquatic location nearby they jump in ? Or what ?

Second, I think that increasing their thoughness by 2 in aquatic location is nice, though it results in a strong monster (which is fine with me) that you can only sell for peanuts (count as normal when it comes to trophy). Did you want this ?

Anyway, great idea to boost up those aquatic monsters (that happen to be in practice usually not different from standard monsters) !

Some idea. I guess this may be more a scenario, though I am not sure

This is motivated by making the arctic expedition more attractive.

amikezor said:

:') yes. re: toughness

They move like a Hound of Tindalos or Hunting Horror except directly to the nearest aquatic location (unless there's an investigator that they could move to normally).

Welcome to the Asylum :') which expansions do you have and how long have you been playing?

amikezor said:

I get the impression English is not your first language (either that or you edited in haste)? Some of the stuff you are saying is rather confusing. Also, you shouldn't mix flavor text with rules text (which I am under the impression you are doing).

Is this card intended to work with other cards, such as "At the mountains of madness" and "the lost city?"

I think the idea of a herald that makes Shoggoths, Proto-Shoggoths, and Elder Things more active is a cool idea (I love monster boosting heralds), but there are several aspects of your card that worry me (I suspect you made them because they fit thematically with a story, but in terms of game balance, I'm not sure if they'll work as well).

Where I would want to take your card design from here is throwing Star Spawn into the mix, and giving each of these monsters a specific and significant ability or power boost (however I would not want to give them a separate cup), exclude them from being affected by the monster limit. And possibly use modified cultists as well.

If your intention is to make a game that resembles a story, I think you're going to need a little more balancing work (and I'm afraid I can't help you with it, because I still haven't read At the Mountains of Madness, assuming that's the story you're basing this off).

Anyways, good luck regardless, and I'll help if I can.

Here is the second version of this mini-expansion

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/384202/at-the-mountains-of-madness-mini-expansion

And, yes, you are right, english is not my first language if you could here me, you would definitely guess

the accent :-))

I do not think Star Spawn fits with this story. Elder Thing and Shoggoth are related

(the formed made the latter), but Star Spawn are from a different story. Well, that is how I understood it :-)

Here I was just trying to make the "At the mountain of madness" more exciting. This mini-expansion

is great, though it need some extra-threat, so investigators would join the expedition with no choice. I would be delighted

to hear ore specific comments :-)

Replying to your first question: I have been playing with all expansions for about a year and am very fan of the game.

By the way, I just played your herald of the black goat and I liked it very much. Great job !

amikezor said:

Glad you liked it :') finally, it's like you actually feel like you're playing the expansion, yeah? ;')

---

I just checked out a copy of a Lovecraft book with At the Mountains of Madness in it. It looks like I might end up making a multi-monster boosting herald of my own :') maybe. It's been a while since I've posted anything. Either way I intend to read the story in the next few weeks.

I don't normally critique mini-expansions because there's no chance I'll ever use the components (I'm only willing to print out Heralds and Ancient Ones), so, there's actually a good chance I won't help you out with this ;') sorry. If you ever make some entirely independent Ancient Ones or Heralds, I'll be glad to help with them though. Sometimes I make an exception to my rule, but not usually :')

Avi_dreader said:

Allright. I shall suggest another herald with no expansion dependancy then. Maye one day :-)

By that time, enjoy the read, this short story is great.

One day soon I hope :')

OK some suggestions...I've read the story and am aware of the thematic elements but as Avi said this makes a reference to something in an mini fan expansion with makes it tougher to rate as I don't know how that works, i think it can be done without expansion dependancy though. I'll go point by point.

Start of Game: if you must use a seperate cup then seperate out diamond dimensional symbol monsters and call it the diamond cup. An alternative to this, since you are only using four, is to just place them on the herald sheet and chose at random when required as you would a spawn monster. In fact if you make them spawn monsters you avoid having to explain later that they do not get sucked through gates as spawn monsters are already immune to this.

Specemins Awake: Everything after the words Science building is unnecisary. The bit about them not being returned to the cup because of their dimensional symbol should be included in The hunt has started since that covers the monsters new abilities, or better yet make them spawn monsters.

Clamor of the Old Ones: Cut out the first sentence.

The hunt has started: The bit about gaining $5 is too nice. And if you return the trophies to the box you will only ever encounter 4 of such monsters then begin to accumulate doom tokens quickly. This could have unforseen effects but not necisarily bad, especialy when monster surges can still add doom tokens.

Every Cloud Had a Silver Lining: What? No it dosen't! This is a herald not a guardian, he's suposed to be a bastard. Cut this out entirely and you also solve the problem of expansion dependence.

Also your use of the term Old Ones is out of theme. The Old Ones were Cthulhus people who were at war with the Elder Things. And your quote, I would scrap it in favor of a quote directly from the story, posibly something describing the shoggoths call the two investigators heard as they were fleeing the city.

Great ! I am very happy to get some feedback on this. Though, Not being able to stop the accumulation of doom tokens seems really severe. I will think about it a bit more. I will post an updated version tomorrow. Excellent suggestions !

I am confused about the Old Ones. I thought that it was an alternative name for Elder Things. This is what I understood from "At the mountains of madness" short story, though I read it in French. Plus there is this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Thing.

Again, thank you.

Here is a new version. The citation will be changed to something more appropriate from the short story.

Looks fun :') a little difficult though since it'll be producing a spawn monster every third turn, and they're going to rip through investigator's items, unless they're careful to trade before fighting ::shrug:: tough but doable I guess.

Anyways, here are some semantic corrections:

Pr is not an abbreviation for professor. There's also a period after an exclamation point in the original flavor text that shouldn't be there.

You can shorten the first paragraph by saying

"Put one of each on the Herald Sheet. They are spawn monsters with an extra toughness and do an extra stamina damage." [i had to lengthen that last part, because monsters don't have stamina, it was pretty clear to me that what you meant is that they do an extra stamina damage though]

Next paragraph:

When a Mythos card with diamond movement is drawn, randomly place a spawn monster from this sheet on the Science Building. [The order of placement is irrelevant— this way it takes up less space on the card]

Next paragaph:

"They start a mystic and forgotten chant to destroy the city" should be italicized and placed as a separate line under Clamour of the Old Ones as flavor text.

Personally, what I would do though, is shorten this entire bit, by removing that flavor text (or putting it under Specimens awaken) and combining these two paragraphs into one like so:

When a Mythos card with diamond movement is drawn, randomly place a spawn monster from this sheet on the Science Building. If no spawn monster is available, add a doom token to the doom track.

Next paragraph:

The Elder Thing, Shoggoth, and Proto-Shoggoth can not be removed from the board except by combat. If defeated they are returned to this card. Investigators who defeat these monsters must discard an item of their choice if possible.

For Elder Thing: a spell.

For Shoggoth: a unique item.

For Proto-Shoggoth: a common item.

[Or you could clump it if you want the text to be shorter like so:]

The Elder Thing, Shoggoth, and Proto-Shoggoth can not be removed from the board except by combat. If defeated they are returned to this card. Investigators who defeat these monsters must discard an item of their choice if possible; for Elder Thing, a spell, for Shoggoth, a unique item, for Proto-Shoggoth, a common item.

Next paragraph:

Don't say all spawn monsters— these are not the only spawn monsters, it will cause problems with certain Ancient Ones. You could say "return this herald's spawn monsters to this sheet." Also, gate isn't capitalized :') aaaand, I'm off to breakfast. Have a good day.

Btw, personally, I think this card's pretty tough, and if you kept in a modified version of Elder Sign slowdown it wouldn't be so bad (i.e. as long as investigators possessed an elder sign, the Shoggoths and Elder Thing wouldn't spawn). I wouldn't call it every cloud has a silver lining though :') this is Arkham, not Mary Poppins.

OK, here is a newer, hopefully, better version.

I removed the Proto-Shoggoths, so that they are not needed for this Herald. Some people do not play with Innsmouth and others (like me :-) only add the Proto-Shoggoth when Innsmouth is in play.

I added some boost to Abhoth (It is not worshipped by any humans but it may be by such creatures :-)

I edited as suggested to make it more compact.

I changed the +1 in toughness to -1 in combat modifier, otherwise the Shoggoth is too strong I think.

I gave a name to the Herald

I left the text as it is because, it explains the context more than if I just copy/paste a citation from HPL.

So any more feedbacks ? (most welcome)

How can I edit my previous posts to remove previous versions ?

-- EDITED AND REMOVED --

Ubbo-Sathla is a good identity for a herald like this as it is likely that the Elder things created it. There is also that little rumor about Ubbo and Abathoth being related if not the same being so relating them is reasonable as well.

Veet said:

That is what I also understood from the wikipedia. I haven't read Clark Ashton Smith, though. Now I should :-)

Heh... I actually *liked* the four toughness Shoggoths ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

Uummm... Well... I see... you like the being beaten to death, right ? ))

I will try with the extra toughness on the next game and see how it goes.

Do you know how I can edit previous post (to get rid of previous versions)

amikezor said:

If I didn't, would I play Arkham? ;')

You can't really get rid of previous posts, but if you mean previous pictures, the way it works for me is if I old copies original sources (i.e. their existence from photobucket), their images break here.