amikezor said:

I think the implicit understanding is that you probably wouldn't use The Bloated Woman unless you're fighting Nyarlethotep (who's pretty easy to beat in final combat). Or if you were counting on a seals victory ;')

Avi_dreader said:

Well, it was not crystal clear in the sheet. Though, I can feel you are right. However, defeating Nyarlathotep twice may be rather difficult. Would'nt it ? Well it has to be tried. ;o)

Avi_dreader said:

Hummm... I see. Clarification may help avoiding the confusion. ;o)

This kind of event barely happen then. When you have to sacrifice one ally, it is not discarded... is it ?

amikezor said:

No, you fight a random second ancient one, not the same one again.

amikezor said:

Yes :') that's pretty much the only time you discard an ally (and when Ma Matheison blight comes out— at least those are the only two occasions I can think of— and I vaguely remember a personal story failure).

Don't forget Duke and Sir William Brinton....it just occured to me that you can end up with a bad ass zombie dog running around as a result of this.

Avi_dreader said:

So if you randomly draw Azathoth are you just boned?

Veet said:

You just got the bullet in Russian Roulette :')

Any chance of getting The Black Man fixed again? it's the only one I didn't download yet.

Veet said:

Sure.

Don't know why ImageShack rejects this, but its now in slightly lower quality (400kb) and I've renamed it. If it happens again I'll have to change artwork or something.

I think I should comment The Bloated Womans "Terrors behind!" ability, the one that pushes a second final combat.

My intention is that it works indiscriminately with every AO: Worst-case scenarios of this would be fighting Quachil Uttaus after Zhar or Azathoth after Nyarlathotep (I deem them next to equal in impossibility ). I'm starting to believe that it's not an ability that should belong to the Bloated Woman, the "Things are not as they seem" ability should be sufficiently strong enough for her.

I've had in my mind for some time to make a Herald that would be anti-Ghroth; a Herald that instead of pushing Doom Tokens would unleash hell when the AO awoke and that would basically be it. It was my general purpose solution for AOs like Ithaqua and Yig - "Easy to Wake, Easy to Kill". Nyarly would of course benefit from a herald like that as well. By making it a herald, masochists could use it for "Easy to Wake, Hard to Kill" and cowards for "Hard to Wake, X to Kill". I just didn't have an idea what this ability would be, other than preferably something else than the usual "add Doom Tokens, worse combat modifier, harsher resistance, stand on your head while rolling dice" stuff. When I looked through the forums I saw that a common Nyarlathotep herald theme was "bring forth another AO in final battle". So I just combined the two ideas. But maybe this is NOT a Nyarlathotep herald ability but an Azathoth herald abiilty (so that the herald can have the text "If the AO is Azathoth..." as to not make the herald worthless against it). Ill pull the "Terrors behind!" ability from the Bloated Woman. Now, since Ghroth and Tulzscha have both been used, does anyone have a good idea for a theme for an Azathoth herald? "Servitor of Outer Gods", "Deamon Sultan" or something more creative?

TL;DR: I'll make an Azathoth herald of the "fight a second final combat" ability.

May I also point out the clear connection between Azathoth and Nyarlathotep:

The dreams were meanwhile getting to be atrocious. In the lighter preliminary phase the evil old woman was now of fiendish distinctness, and Gilman knew she was the one who had frightened him in the slums. Her bent back, long nose, and shrivelled chin were unmistakable, and her shapeless brown garments were like those he remembered. The expression on her face was one of hideous malevolence and exultation, and when he awaked he could recall a croaking voice that persuaded and threatened. He must meet the Black Man and go with them all to the throne of Azathoth at the centre of ultimate chaos. That was what she said. He must sign the book of Azathoth in his own blood and take a new secret name now that his independent delvings had gone so far. What kept him from going with her and Brown Jenkin and the other to the throne of Chaos where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly was the fact that he had seen the name "Azathoth" in the Necronomicon, and knew it stood for a primal evil too horrible for description.

The old woman always appeared out of thin air near the corner where the downward slant met the inward slant. She seemed to crystallize at a point closer to the ceiling than to the floor, and every night she was a little nearer and more distinct before the dream shifted. Brown Jenkin, too was always a little nearer at the last, and its yellowish-white fangs glistened shockingly in that unearthly violet phosphorescence. Its shrill loathsome tittering struck more and more into Gilman's head, and he could remember in the morning how it had pronounced the words "Azathoth" and "Nyarlathotep".

-Lovecraft, "Dreams in the Witch-House"

I was going to suggest Nyarlethotep because of the obvious connection there. For that matter there is no reason that a mask couldn't be a fitting theme for an Azathoth herald since they are Nyarlethotep.

rovdjuret said:

Well, I will say this, Bloated Woman is *very* tough (since she cripples clue gathering abilities, making final battle more likely, while making final battle much much harder). It's one of the toughest heralds I've seen (outside of the ridiculously unbalanced ones), but I like it, since it doesn't actually speed up the game (like FFG's Black Goat) that being said, it's yours to change if you want to. Just remember though— you can have the the lovely Nyarlathotep heralds in the world, but if you don't give him a final combat boost, he's still going to get crushed every game.

I just thought up a new Nyarlathotep ability for final combat (while looking over your cards) :') but I'm saving that for my herald (the one I sketched out on the board). The first player must fight or evade four random masks each round of combat ::evil grin:: (this is kindof based on the trick I used for my Dracula AO and my BGotW with Shub herald) but I think a final mask fight will be fun. And at least Nyarlathotep can punch back now, right?

Anyways, whatever other final battle boosts you organ harvest :') make sure you give Nyarl something or else he'll be a pushover. I still think you should leave the extra random AO fight.

---

When you were suggesting an Azathoth herald that leads to a second fight, did you mean instead of fighting Azathoth you fight two random AOs?

Also, when you're *completely* done with the game text of your Nyarlethotep heralds, let me know (there's some proofreading I'd like to do— shorten the text length and a few corrections). For instance, right now TBM says "to be" instead of "from being." True, that actually makes it longer, but ;') it's either that or insanity.

Avi_dreader said:

You have sanity left? Care to spare some?

Nice to know, it's kind of hard to formulate strict and correct rules in a foreign language.

Also, @Veet & Avi: Points taken. I'll get back to playtesting and see how things work out.

You know it occurs to me that even fighting one ancient one randomly chosen at the begining of the final battle would potentially be harder due to the fact you are not able to plan ahead. Sure you could plan to clue shotgun it back to the abyss but what happens if the guy holding all the clues didn't get that gate trophy necesary to avoid being devoured?

rovdjuret said:

::laughter:: I don't care if English is your first language or your second language, I love your Nyarlathotep heralds, and I will only be able to love them a little more once I proofread them, I look forward to the day they're done, but don't rush ;')

Veet said:

That's exactly the power of random ancient one fights :') they don't allow you to prepare (unless you prepare by hoarding pretty much every type of resource which can be a bit difficult).

@ Veet

So, I've been thinking about your Azathoth AO a lot, and I really like it. If you don't mind, I'd like to turn it into an Azathoth herald called Fear of Azathoth or something of that sort, where its current two powers (the ones you designed) are Azathoth only, and it's normal powers are causing the terror level to rise twice instead of once (it goes with the whole Azathoth's terror maniac theme) and making gates to the Abyss uncloseable and requiring a roll every mythos phase which does 1 sanity damage to all investigators in Arkham on a 1-2— so it would be a nasty herald that could potentially accompany Hastur or Glaaki for added effect— not that the Colorish effect wouldn't be pretty horrid against someone like Cthulhu,. I always felt bad about not really making an Azathoth herald (I sort of snuck him onto Kerathimel— but that's really more of a Yog herald thematically).

::Laughter:: I'll even use the picture if you don't mind.

Sure.

This second sentence is only because the forums think the first is too short.

Veet said:

You'd think that the genius programmers of this sort of operation would allow for one word answers of yes, no, Yes, No, Yes. No. Yes? No? Yes! and No!

And for yeahs too.

But no :')

Hoo... So I just went through the forums saving copies of other people's stuff I liked in the last several months, and I have a few pages of my own remarks (on editing or creating heralds). So hopefully I'll put out that Nyarlathotep herald and Azathoth herald in about a week, and an improved version of Wendigo, Creature in the Clouds, and a heavily edited Lich King (which might actually be a bit easier— but will definitely be a *lot* shorter, I rewrote the text for it several weeks ago, but I haven't reassembled the strange aeons file).

Recently, I have play tested

* the Wendigo : great (with modifications we discussed Avi). The crippling winds are great. And it makes Ithaqua more of a challenge (which is nice) in the end.

* Seth : very nice and it is not as hard as you suggested will be translated in French soon . Makes Yig more difficult to defeat in Final Combat, which is nice, otherwise it may be a piece of cake (sometimes).

* The Phantom of truth : We play the King In Yellow "pure" and it makes it really tough. We decided to ignore some capacity (like put a new act in play when the doom token ranges are filled and did not add Carcossa Gates). I bet this herald is perfect if the KiY is dilluted with at least another mythos deck. Otherwise, great. Get some good pressure. Terror level ended at 10 (not so frequent :-).

I plan to playtest many of the unofficial herald (the ones that sounds cool anyway :-). Avi already send suggestions. What about you guys, any suggestions ?

I look forward to the final version of the Nyarlatothep heralds before play test and translation to French.

amikezor said:

Heh... Set's tough because he gives Yig strong shields, and allows him to kill investigators much faster. He's also dangerous if the first monster the pops out is a Serpent People (I was tempted to make the Serpent People mandatory, but it seemed a little cruel, not that having Yig start off with a stalker cultist isn't rather cruel ;'D I wouldn't describe it as one of my tougher heralds though. At the same time, players would need to be at least somewhat advanced to know how to manage evading the cultists and the serpent people while killing Yig before he wakes up (as he probably will if they're relatively inexperienced), because now it's much more unlikely that they'll just be able to bludgeon him to death. Honestly, I don't think any of my heralds are *that* hard. They're all designed to be beatable. They just change around game dynamics significantly so you have to put a little thought into them and vary your game strategy a little to manage against them. If you just charge into one on autopilot, it will kill you, but if you put thought into it, you should be able to take it down. Well... Except for the Arbiter of Reality ;') that was designed to break spirits while being nasty, and you need to play a really good game to deal with it. Even The Maskless has an achilles heel (if you look for it). I prefer some of the other players Nyarlathotep heralds (I'm kindof tempted to redesign this, but on the other hand, I'm not sure if it's necessary since I'm making a new Nyarlathotep herald anyways).

re: Ithaqua/Wendigo, yeah. Again, all my heralds were designed to strengthen the base game AO's so they'd be more up to par in terms of difficulty with the expansions' AOs.

::Laughter:: you played The Phantom of Truth when you had an undiluted King in Yellow deck? *Bad* idea ;'D well, it would have been if you didn't modify it. But it was designed to combat dilution, not to be used with an undiluted deck, that'd be crazy :') terror at ten 'ey? ::laughter::

If I had to pick a few of my heralds to translate (that you haven't already), I'd pick Kerathimel and The Great Dark Worm.

Avi_dreader said:

It happens so that the first monster was indeed a serpent people, the second one a cultist. Though, I killed them both with a spell (the one that reduces the toughness by 1) before they damaged us. Anyway, I just wanted to emphasize that we enjoyed the game with Set (usually I am not such a big fan of Yig that is *usually* rather easy to deal with).

OK next of yours will be worm, janus and kerathimel.

I fetched all heralds from this thread. Any other place where people post custom heralds ? (BGG ?)