Julia said:

Some sort of wiki would be great. Then we could display the "latest" version of each herald, what phase it is in (concept, alpha, beta...). It would be nice to get rid of photopucket. It would also be easy to link related heralds to each other.

Well, you could always dream...

rovdjuret said:

Eh, it's not a dream, we'd just need to go onto the Arkham Horror wiki and make a Fan Creation section that we can organize by creator (and cocreators— personally, I know at the very least I owe Veet credit for the Crevice of Chaos), and type of creation. I'm sure someone will do it eventually ;') but it probably won't be me.

Avi_dreader said:

hey guys. That sounds like an idea. You put "latest" versions of the herald on the wiki, very easy to update. That sounds very nice.

Why not you Avi ? who else would do it better than you ? :-)))

(I do some of the french wiki non-official section, I am not going to do the US one as well... ;o)

amikezor said:

Hah. I don't like techie stuff (you can tell how much I don't like it from the fact that I called a wiki techie). Besides, I've already volunteered for proof-reading and editing, and the Fan Creation League. I have enough unpaid jobs already ;') Actually, since you've already done it for the French wiki, that would make you much more qualified in this case.

Mmmm... If you set up a forum section for fan creations in the English AH Wiki and showed me how to update (perhaps on Skype), I might consider posting stuff to it and monitoring it to some extent.

It took me a few hours... A lot longer than I expected actually since I already had drafts of what effects I wanted, but I drastically redid The Maskless (it will function very differently now— it will be less overwhelming, but still deadly, especially when paired with her counterpart, Faceless One). He took me much longer than I'd planned (I realized there were certain problems with his ability design and it took me a long time to figure out how to word it so it would do what I wanted).

I'll upload them soon. I want to correct Creature in the Clouds, Lich King, and Wendigo first though.

Heh... I almost feel guilty for not doing more (I had loads of ideas for game effects while designing the scenarios— some of them are even good ones :') I mean, good in a not completely terrifying manner, but I'm going to keep my lips tied about those). Well... Except for one. I kindof already exposed it for the first scenario, so it's already out of the bag. Cup spawn. Basically where you have spawn monsters in the cup that if they happen to go to the outskirts have a special effect (movement elsewhere or whatever).

And... ****.... I really thought I was done. I guess I'll be editing that SE file a third time... Guh... Getting the abilities of these two cards to work together properly is *such* a pain. I'm almost tempted to just leave them as they are and issue a clarification for how they're supposed to work ;'D ::sigh::

---

Oh. I realize that might not have been nice, to get you curious about what they do and not say anything :') Um. Maskless now spawns random masks directly on 1st players in Arkham (or lowest sneak in Arkham), during Mythos on a roll of 1 (it puts the masks in the cup unless there are other Nyarlathotep Avatars that require them). Masks don't double move any more. Skinless One gained stalker (as well as fast). Cultists are now fast stalkers and when they change into God of the Bloody Tongue it surprises the investigator. Nyarlathotep gets a combat modifier of -6 and physical resistance. The other Skinless ability remained the same, as did the Haunter ability, and The Dark Pharoah ability. And some of the things that remained received a bit more clarification.

You'll see the Faceless One soon enough :') when you play him with The Maskless, Nyarlathotep gets double clue damage attacks, has phys and magic res, a combat modifier of -8, an additional clue draining ability (that will continue to operate during final combat— when investigators get devoured all investigators lose two clues, and I changed one of the Sinister Plot cards to prevent, um, glitching I guess— it doesn't really work right when the masks are treated like spawns, so it required modification). Most of the rest of it operates as I described a while back. Kindof. It required... Some tweaking.

Hmmm... I edited The Lich King (it's somewhat different). Also, it's less buggy and the text is much shorter. I also made a significant change to Janus (I provided some clarification on how the double evade works, but far more importantly, I had him give investigators the option of adding two other heralds when he is chosen). And I fixed his flavor text (which I hated). I didn't provide clear instructions how stacked movement types work, I left it for players to decide whether they'll use one, or some combination of both movement types with deliberate ambiguity. The functionality of the first Fan Creation League scenario won't change though since Janus is the only herald anyways and there are no stacked movement types :')

Now to Creature in the Clouds and Wendigo and I get to make a giant heralds post, huzzah ;')

6 revised heralds :') not bad for a day (and night's) work. I'll post them soon.

Then let me add one to that, Avi.

I sat down and re-did the math on the Phantom, this version should be mathematically more sound than before unless I made an error in calculating. Key is 1) un-diluting the Act deck so that all combos of expansions fear the Act deck if playing with this Herald and 2) being a terror-Ghroth, good for an extra 4-6 terror (also hopefully without any respect to expansion-configuration). I'm kind of too tired to show the math right now (I'll leave it to the reader as an exercise ). There are two changes since last version: Pallid mask pushes Act deck instead of being terror bomb (stay away from the unique items deck if playing AH/KiY/CotDP/IH with touring performance), and there is a new mechanic for extra terror.

There is also a change of quote, for some reason it just felt better with what the herald actually did. I still like the dialogue quote better but this ties in with the quote on the last Act card and it better mirrors the actual mechanics on the card I think.

Too hard? Just right? Better than before? Worse?

amikezor said:

Yes, I saw it. I'm sorry that I didn't answer you before. It's good to know that it feels thematic. I started out with the concept "use barred cards to force-move investigators across the board", it just felt so natural that it was the Haunter doing that. But as you say, it's not tested nearly enough to know if that is how the players will actually behave...

Avi_dreader said:

I think whatever you put in the FCL, it's gonna be a cauldron of new good ideas. As for Nyarlathotep, I'd be surprised if any of the Avatars will look the way they do now when its over... Anyways, I'll try to participate, I think we gonna have lots of fun. Great initiative!

It's unclear which of the terror rises you intend to put act cards into play, If I'm right, and you don't intend for environments rumors to put act cards into play (since that'd be fairly preposterous). Move that text (about environments and rumors) into the bottom of the left text box (replace "In addition, each time" with "When"). Also, "drawn mythos card" is somewhat unclear (does that include things like Jaqueline, maybe, inapplicable redrawings, and Arcane Insight? Presumably not). Um... I'm having trouble thinking how to rephrase this...

"Mythos: if the Mythos card's movement pattern matches the movement pattern of an environment or rumor in play, raise the terror level by 1."

Also, shorten the left box text by just changing it to "Start of Game: raise the terror level by two." (The rest of that text is obvious— I realize that FFG does it ;'D but FFG doesn't exactly design the best heralds or clearest cards either).

Would it be possible to put "Lost Carcosa" on the same line as "But stranger still is"? The card's fairly large (I realize some of my heralds are oversized, but I do try to shrink them to normal size [one of the reasons I revised The Lich King]). If you're strongly attached to it, don't change it. You could shorten the poetry even more by reformatting it so it created the illusion of prose. "Strange is the night where black stars rise, and strange moons circle through the skies. But stranger still is Lost Carcosa."

Alter the line about "If the Act Deck is in use" to "Put the top card of the Act deck in play if the terror rises by any of these means:"

Change one of the lower paragraphs to "Upkeep: if there is a gate to Lost Carcosa in Arkham, the 1st [or first, whichever fits your formatting better] player must lose 2 sanity or raise the terror level by 1."

Instead of "Each time the Pallid Mask" say "When Pallid Mask."

For the last chunk of text, change it to "The Phantom of Truth, and the King in Yellow can be used as heralds simultaneously with cumulative effects." It's not really necessary to say that King in Yellow will operate when the terror level rises, it's kind of obvious (simultaneous should be enough, simultaneous and cumulative should definitely be enough).

---

Comments: It seems mostly fine. I don't have any problems with any of the game mechanics. I'm a little worried about environmental terror rises, but I figure it's only a 1 in 6 chance of a terror rise, so, that's not *too* bad. Maybe :'/ Assume it'll statistically cause 3-4 (normally 3) terror level rises over the course of an average game, so given that, let's say two to three levels of terror track rising is natural based on a normal game environment, that's a total of 7 max, and then you have the initial 2, that's 9, and then you have Strange Sightings cards added, that's 10? Um... It's pushing it a bit. It's possible that you'll want to remove the initial terror level of 2 or reduce it to 1. I think this card is going to have a *really* high terror level (and of course, played with KiY it will be even higher because of the Riots and Velma). Uh... So yeah, I think that's my only significant comment, you might want to remove the initial terror two. I don't think you can make it function properly with King in Yellow if you don't. It's already perilously close to waking up a -10 Hastur.

rovdjuret said:

Well, maybe not a cauldron, but there's a few I had that I facepalmed myself for not thinking of sooner.

Direct links to significantly updated Heralds:

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Janus.jpg
http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/TheLichKing.jpg
http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Wendigo.jpg
http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/CreatureintheCloud.jpg
http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/TheMaskless.jpg
http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/FacelessOne.jpg

Oh cool ;'D I formatted them so they actually fit without direct links. Finally!

a new idea.

I know that you will complain about the monster token Avi, but I liked it :-)

Uh, I'll definitely complain :') Since you're using Dunwich Horror cards, why don't you just use the Dunwich Horror Token to represent The Toad King (or any spawn monster really), I guess it doesn't matter much, except for the fact that you're not putting its evade modifier and combat details on the card (and I'm not going to print out a copy of the monster chit)?

You also need to explain how monsters will move in between towns and how flying monsters will operate with this (look back into the second league the Tsathoggua match rules clarifications to see the sorts of problems involved with that if you're having trouble with it). Also, the monster to monolith movement's going to require a bit more clarification (even though I'm pretty sure I know how you want it to work). And you need to say what happens once the Toad is on the board, if movement patterns stay the same, or what.

I also don't see why you're giving the toad king an infinite evade modifier, how about -3?

"Face the toad king" is unclear. While it is in play? Does it move to them? Do they move to it? Neither? What happens if it is defeated?

The text length can be compressed a bit by shortening the poetic format into prose format while preserving most of the rhythm with proper punctuation.

****... The Lich King needs editing... I HATE HATE HATE HATEHATEHATE THE LICH KING! ::Ends Kefkaesque rant:: ::Sigh:: ::Laughter::

Edit: Well... at least it's done now... For the lastlastlastlastlastlastlastlastlastlastlastlastlast time, I hope.

Edit: deleted.... Again.

::twitch twitch::

Edit: Okay. Here it is. I keep trying to kill it, but it won't stay dead :') appropriately enough. Now its text is more legible, the way it is.... NO NO NO NO NO NO!

Edit: ....

Edit: Okay, that last edit was a joke, but all the other edits were real, albeit slightly exaggerated responses. Um... What am I doing again? Oh yes, trying to not go insane from this god **** thing (this time it's photobucket).

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/LichKingXzmundl.jpg

WHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Avi_dreader said:

@ avi: First: Big thanks for wording! Second: You're probably right. It's not my intention to make heralds that are too hard and I think that the Phantom is still a tad bit over the top. As you might have noticed I have a knack for not doing things too differently from FF so you've probably already realized that I'm not gonna change the 2 terror at start nor the wording of it. I'm going to kill a darling though and remove the whole part about environment/rumor adding terror. I'll add an extra terror loss for pallid mask as compensation but I'll live with the phantom being a light herald in certain circumstances. Hydra is not so strong either by herself anyway.

@ amikezor; As for the feeling you were looking for that you and your friend experienced, that will have to be a scenario. Hastur+King in Yellow+Phantom of Truth+Touring Performance. I like the concept of a scenario that threatens to add just one more terror and the players doing anything to avoid it. As compensating, maybe a way to remove Blights (but I'm just brainstorming right now). I think I'll start doing scenarios when the Nyarlathotep gang is done.

I think I wait to do the wording and cosmetics this time until I hear what you guys have to say...

Avi_dreader said:

Ok, I'll try to explain.

First of all, he doesn’t behave as intended. I wanted TBM to lure investigators to him, clue tokens but with a price. But players seem more interested in the un-poisoned clue tokens. Not strange, of course, but now they are actively avoiding or running away. No one wants to strike a deal with the devil...

A luring mechanic is hard to design (it should be interesting to see if they solved it in Lurker or if Dark Pact is entirely another mechanic). The solution here would be to give some kind of power to the investigators with doom tokens. Preferably investigators with doom tokens could also have a shot at some kind of “individual victory”. Problem is, this solution gets very wordy. The solution to this is separate cards, which I’m currently avoiding.

Secondly, there is the issue of unoriginality. The mechanic with poisonous clue tokens is interesting in itself but TBM is awfully close to Eihort. Granted, Eihort doesn’t meddle with clue tokens but I’d take pains to differentiate them more.

Thirdly, it was annoying to have to check if the location had the spell icon, but that can be fixed by using another trigger than board markers. I still think that location markers could be useful for other mechanics, maybe placing different kinds of stuff on the board – then you only check once, here the players had to check every turn. The clue tokens can be placed in a special pattern on the board/whatever to mark them as ”special”. Now, had I been FF and wanted this mechanic to work, I’d printed ”special clue tokens”, that had black background instead of green.

And this takes me to what bothers me. If FF had been doing this herald like this, there would probably be ”The Black Man” tokens that would double as doom tokens and clue tokens. Part of the challenge for us as fan creators is that we either have to work with the materials that exist or do extensive print and play stuff. I can do both but I wont do pnp untill I explored all possibilities to use existing tokens. But for me, using proxxi tokens is a no-no... I respect other opinions of course but I wont design that way.

I have an entirely different idea for a TBM herald revolving around "two end battles" (which I am about to post) but let me elaborate what still could be done with the old one if anyone has a good idea: In order for the existing TBM to work as intended, there should be a really sly mechanic that makes use of the fact that doom tokens and elder signs tokens are the same tokens. Think about that for a moment – all other things in this game have their dedicated counters but for some reason doom tokens and elder signs does not. Why? An Elder sign item lets you flip a doom counter and place it on the board but that is the only time you actually flip the counter.

They’re not even being used in the same place (doom track/board) so the actual flipping of the token with the hand is not even that convenient. Elder SIgn items are certainly not reason enough to print them on the same counter. In fact, the information that a location is sealed is important enough that the Elder Sign token should be larger than it is (yes, I’ve seen the thread with the home made elder signs but I think that the proper size would probably be somewhere around the hexagon shape). Could the herald (or another herald) to something smart with this, I'm in.

But I'll show you my other idea in a little while.

rovdjuret said:

::Laughter:: if you want something that can remove blights ;') make it a guardian.

Yeah... I guess you can get rid of the matching pattern thing. That'd the terror level a bit. It's an interesting idea though. And it made the herald pretty ferocious. ::Laughter:: it seems I've misunderstood you ;') from your heralds, I *thought* you were trying to make extremely difficult heralds. I kept scratching my head trying to figure out how to beat all the Avatars together for instance (I ended up scratching my head off!) Well, in the future, I'll try to make some suggestions accordingly.

Heh... If you're going to put in extra text for pallid mask, make it a rise of 3. It's not like there are so many pallid masks in the deck that it'll be consistently flooding the terror track. Make it *real* terror when it appears :') (and it'd still be statistically less terror than the environment/rumor ability would provide— when the mask appears, I mean).

rovdjuret said:

Well... You could deal with some of the clue problems (making people run away from TBM) by having clues from locations with lore icons only cause a doom token on an investigator if they fail like a will -2 check (i.e. it'd be difficult, but doable, and people will no doubt go for them in certain occasions). This would cause people to feel less threatened by The Black Man's "free" clues :') so they won't run from them like poison, necessarily. Also, players wouldn't be as cautious if instead of having them lose the game if they ran out of clues, The Ancient One instantly woke up with all doom tokens on the players added to its doom track as extra doom tokens. [Perhaps have these added to the tougher end battle— assuming the two aren't identical] You could also have a devoured investigator only place one of its doom tokens on the doom track (that way you'd encourage more use of TBM, although I worry that might make it a little too easy to get clues now, so you might want to make TBM's luck check difficulty, or perhaps to have him provide 2 or 3 doom tokens— I'm not sure how many doom tokens there are total, so I can't quite do the math).

Or maybe your gaming group is just afraid of him because he's black ;'D

Mmm.... You could also alter The Dark Coven ability so if a gate removes clue tokens at one of those two locations it removes clue tokens from *all* locations (forcing deals with the devil due to clue scarcity). Instead of all Elder Signs. You could also have it remove 2 Elder Signs (players' choice).

It's a good thing I kept a hardcopy of your TBM ;'D you really shouldn't take things down until you have new editions of them out (because otherwise they're harder to critique).

I still think using the item markers at locations is brilliant, and there's no reason you shouldn't have a herald that encourages players to think about what sort of encounters are at locations. Don't discard that, I love it! ;'D

Hrm... Something else to think about, you could make locations with the spell markers *produce* clues on a lore -3 check (make sure it's -3 so players can't just spam for clues there normally, but will have to go there if they get desperate— most investigators have a lore of at least four, so -3 should be alright). I.e. if investigators got desperate after Wizards Hill or Witch House wash away all the clues and a couple elder signs.

It's possible that the destroy all clues and two elder signs mechanic would be enough to encourage usage of TBM (even with the doom token issue). Except... The doom token issue won't be quite as terrifying if you make lore locations not add doom if investigators pass their will -2 checks (I'd have TBM's doom token upreventable at the very least, even if you don't increase the difficult of his luck check— which I think is important to do since otherwise, even with one doom devourings, he'll be somewhat exploitable— also, have TBM add a doom token to an investigator when he moves on his space or vice versa— just ignore the whole doom after clues aspect for him, that way investigators who were pure prior to his devouring will still cause a doom token to appear). It'll still work thematically if people have imaginations, but now also mechanically a little bit better (I think).

----

Why do I have a feeling I'll be adding in a 24th scenario (ah well, I felt guilty for only giving Nyarlathotep 3 scenarios anyways)? If you take most of these changes I know exactly how I'd modify this to rapidly crank up the difficulty level :') but, that last part is a secret, for now. I'd give you that clue, but I don't want to cause you to go insane ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

I swear I'm not removing anything Look in my imageshack, theres all versions I ever made of everything (including seriously-out-dated stuff from the old and the old-old forums). But lately ImageShack has turned sour on me. In particular, it seems to have a serious dislike for TBM.

Avi_dreader said:

You won't make this easy for me I see... what if I said I had an entirely different concept? But ok, we'll put together an TBM to fit the league based on your suggestions, but after lurker comes out and the league has been running for some time its open season. Ok?

rovdjuret said:

;') Maybe ImageShack is also afraid of black people.

rovdjuret said:

::Laughter:: we'll see. Although I'd like to hear what your entirely different concept is :') I've really enjoyed your Nyarlathotep creations (even though they've had their occasional bugs— there've been lots of good ideas in them and creative uses of components).