Julia said:

Same as Julia wrote, only 3 patterns exists: [plus vs. moon], [star, triangle, antislash vs. hexagon] and [square, diamond vs circle]. They can be reverted in colors and the 6 sub-patterns are ALWAYS in equal frequency (easy to convince yourself :-). Very important point while designing custom material :-)

amikezor said:

;-) thank you! A problem remains unanswered: what happens if you run out of Madnesses? In the worst case possible, 6 seals equals to 18 Madnesses. We have - I believe - 24 madnesses in the whole deck; thus only 6 remains for "normal" insanity. And then?

Probably the same thing that happens when you run out of anything negative in this game..... The Ancient One awakes!

Of course I'm not basing this off anything official.

Julia said:

I'm not sure if that's a problem ;'D Even assuming you have a full eight investigator game, that's an average of 3 madnesses per player. You could say that if an investigator must take a madness but can't, that investigator is devoured, (and the replacement investigator comes into play with no starting possessions?)

Or you could go the instant awakening route Veet suggested. I'm a little worried it's too close to getting there. Also, 6 seals is only a problem with a gate burst.

Orrrr... You could do something a little different. Remember how many madnesses each investigator has, then return them all to the deck, shuffle, and redistribute (that should hopefully get a person or two devoured).

Also, it needs to be specified if blessing refers to being blessed, or gaining a blessing. It could currently be read that being uncursed triggers the effect (which isn't your intent I think).

Avi_dreader said:

I had a game with 7 gate bursts (a nightmarish game against Tsath, with Dunwich, Black goat and Lurker Mythos only, breaking every dam(n) seal on the board), so maybe it can be a problem ::laughing:: Ok then, let's figure something out. Devouring the poor investigator could be a good idea. Ok for the point about being Blessed / gaining a Blessing. I'll fix it.

Last question (for now, at least): is it clear the sentence "if there are three clues on this card, stop drawing Madnesses"? I intended Madnesses caused by that specific Blessing, if that investigator becomes insane during a fight, he can still choose to gain a fourth Madness

Julia said:

Regarding the wording. I'll help with everything within a week or two (at most— I'll probably try to do it sometime this week if everything in the herald is finalized first).

Anyhoo... Back to reading Sprague's Lovecraft bio.

Arg... I know I've already said this several times but I'm really excited about the final product (I love madness and corruption distribution effects).

Avi_dreader said:

Yep, I think I should be able to finalize this in not too a long time. A horrible saturday evening is awaiting for me. I have to finish an embroidery (? maybe... a kind of cross-stich tapestry) for the coming week and aaaaaaaaaam laaaaaaaaaaaaaate (so, more free time for thinking about Arkham)

Hi! I just made my first Herald - in fact it's an small expansion, anyway: "The Shining Trapezohedron" from H.P.'s story "Haunter of the Dark" All pieces are in German that far, so i try to translate and explain in the plain text

Along with the herald sheet you'll get:

9 darkness marker

8 spawn monsters "haunter of the dark" (I split that Mask into 8 Monsters so they could be everywhere in Arkham at the same time, every Haunter has another dimensional symbol)

1 location marker "Ruined Church" that will replace the "South Church" and makes it an unstable, horrific location

1 unique item "Shining Trapezohedron"

18 Mythos cards that causes Gates or Clue Tokens on the Ruined Church

A full set of location cards for the brown locations (main game and all expansions exept the lurker) the encounters of Ma's and the society are the same, but the church becomes a very nasty place...

The herald causes that the street locations next to an gate opening are getting dark. Also a Haunter of the Dark Monster will be spawned in a dark street. Every monster gains 1 toughness in dark streets, but sneak checks are also increased by one.

The investigators can fight the Haunters as normal, but if they fail, the terror track raises by 1. Another way is to spend 5 Clue tokens to relight a street location while the encounter phase. Every Haunter in an relighted location is defeated as well.

In H.P.'s story the people of the neighborhood are guarding the the darkness, so every player can lay down an ally in a street location that guards it (no Haunter can be spawned there or go there). Gate bursts and some special effects on the mythos and the brown location card could kill them... too sad. If a player wants, he could pick up an guarding ally and rejoin at any time.

If there are all 8 Haunters in Game the AO awakes.

But you can try to use the Trapezohedron against the AO as well. If you dare, enter the Church Ruin. Maybe you go insane (most likely) but there is a fair chance (one of seven encounters), that you can get the Trapezohedron as an unique item. The encounter reads as follows:

"There lays great power within that jewel case. If you want to open it, spend sanity tokens and throw a dice for every token you spend. If you get at least one success, take the unique item Shining Trapezohedron"

After that it works still as an Herald. You own it, but you didn't destroyed it. You can try to destroy it at any time, but you have to use both of your hands, so you won't be able to fight at the same time. If you destroy the Trapezohedron the Haunters go away (the streets stay dark until relighted) and you may remove 4 doom tokens. This could be very powerful in final battle, but as i said: trying to destroy the Trapezohedron will prevent you from fighting...

The text on that unique item reads: "Everytime: Exhaust and spend 3 sanity to make a (-2) [2] Lore check. If you succed get rid of the Trapezohedron and 4 doom-tokens. If you fail, nothing happens."

Hope you like that herald expension or have some helpful suggestions.

Tim

I have one helpful suggestion. Writing in english? Thanks.

Sartago said:

Hi Tim,

thanks for posting! I skimmed through your creation (sorry, don't have the time to read it more carefully now, I'll try to come back to this later), so I can give you just a few notes on this. For now, at least. I really like - thematically speaking - the idea of transforming the South Church into a ruined location. Just a question: what's written under the new South Church chit? I'm afraid you removed from the game the chance of buying blessings here, and this is a major change in Arkham core rules, altering a lot the balance of the game.

Second game: I really don't get the point why you should lose the chance of fighting if you try to use the Trapezohedron. You said it can be used in Any Phase. So, why should an investigator decide to use it during the Movement Phase? Let's use it during the Upkeep and that's all. Besides, passing a Lore -2 [2] check isn't more difficult than closing a gate like the Abyss in a Yog-Sothoth game. It should be a goal pretty easy to achieve if you have a decent spellcaster in your party. Third observation: this seems to me more similar to a Special Acquisition - a la Deputy revolver, for example - I won't indicate a price nor use the Unique item pattern (otherwise I'd think I have to shuffle it with in the Unique Items deck). Being part of the Unique item deck will encouage people of searching for it at the Curiosity Shoppe instead of going to the more dangerous ruined South Church. Last note: the payoff is too rewarding. 4 doomers equals to 4 elder signs used, 20 bucks when shopped. And having the chance of removing in a single shot 4 doomers... it breaks the game (if you're a little good at controlling the doom track)

The ideas are good, but in my opinion, you should balance everything a little more ;-)

I have to agree with Hugues here. You did explain somewhat how things work bit you didn't post any of the actual text translated. I can't even copy/paste the text into a translator since we have only images of it. I can't really give a critique if I don't know how things are worded.

Hugues said:

That probably didn't sound as it was meant to sound, but this is an English forum (and while we have a few German speakers scattered around, the rest of us are going to be completely clueless about what we're looking at— besides, I'm not sure if any of the other German speaking forumites even visit the Fan Creations section).

Also, what Julia said. With an item that powerful, I'd hunt for an encounter that lets me search the unique item deck for it. And there are several ways to do that. Or I'd just let the Dunwich Horror wake up with the intention to fight it for that item. Minimally the item should be returned to the box after one use. And it should probably also not remove more than two doom tokens. I'm also not sure why it has hands markers on it. Looking forward to your translation.

Hey, thanks so far.

I will overwork my cards and stuff these days and post it in (uttlery bad) english... i was a bit too enthusistic, for it's my first herald....

first response: julia is right, that item does not belong in the usual item deck, but on the herald sheet... you can't buy it or get it any other way, as considered...

i will do my homework and return soon ;P

Yep, my bad if it sounded to harsh.

Maybe your english is ulterly bad... But my german is close to zero. I mean i know one from ten, thanks, please, hello, good bye and 3 sentences. That's all. And i think i'm not the only one. And i didn't event take the opportunity to try an online translation, so i didn't realize that we couldn't do it.

If really your english is too bad, at least, try to put a copy/pastable version. At least, we'll' be able to try an online translator and have an idea of your stuff. Cause right no, i'm clueless. (Which is a bad thing in Arkham)

No problem, there was no offending... and here they are - in english!

First of all: My herald:

Along with hime come, 8 Spawn Monsters, 9 Darkness Marker (for the Street Locations in Arkham, no Dunwich ...) and a special item, all placed next to the Herald:

Every Haunter of the Dark has another dimensional symbol.

This item is a special card. It may only be gained trough some encounters at the Ruined Church (see below). This is quite unlikely or only at high cost, as the other encounters at that Church are very Nasty for the Investigator and sometimes whole Arkham. As it has to be discarded you may only use it once - in game to gain more time or in the final battle. But if ever driven insane, you not only will loose thatitem but your life...

Julia was right: I removed the Blessing Ability of the Church, but I rechanged that ... but with a twist. You can be blessed at that church but it's not guaranteed any more.

Note that the Church is an unstable location. So there will be 18 Mythos Cards with the game (no time to translate this far): 12 for opening a Gate at the Ruiened Church, 6 Gate Bursts for other locations in Arkham.

The encounters at that ruin are quite nasty i think, but 1 of 7 ist the Gain-that-Trapezohedron encounter. I give you a few examples:

"The Whispering of the Wind in that broken windows sounds like an long sung litany. Lose 1 Sanity. Cast a dice. at a 6 at 1 Doom Token to the AO doom track"

"That stais seem endless. You are delayed and lose 2 Stamina."

"You are resting on an old bank. Between the rotten bibles you see an other book. Draw the first book out of the unique item deck."

"You startled something in the Darkness, that shold be left there! An other Street Locations falls into Darkness and a Haunter of the Dark appears there. You get 1 Clue Token."

and final, the Trapezohedron:

"There lays great power within that juwelcase! If you want to open it, spend sanity tokens and throw a dice for every token you spend. If you get at least one success, take the spacial Item Shining Trapezohedron. Otherwise you are delayed."

So, that should give you some insight into my plans. I know that the item ist strong, maybe too strong, but the herald and the location are quite strong too. Yo will have every round one more monster, the other monsters are stronger in the darkness, too. And it will be quite difficult to find and use the Trapezohedron before getting insane...

So again: critique? suggestions?

First of all, thank you for having posted this in English. It would be easier sharing with you our toughts ;.-)

First of all, the Herald. I think the dynamic of placing an Ally in the Dark Alleys needs a little clarification: if you place an Ally there, does his bonuses still enhancing your stats? I'd say no, but don't know whether you intend it. Second point: monster surge and Ally in the Dark Alley. You say "discard that Ally"; maybe it should be better "return that Ally to the box", I mean, probably the Haunter of the Dark is gonna have breakfast with your friend. Besides, this blocks the abuse of some Allies (imagine you leave Professor Rice in front of the Woods. At the first monster surge, he's discarded, so you can go at Ma's to recruit him again & load again the board with clues. Last point about monster surges / bursts: you need to specify that the Haunter of the Dark enters play in the streets adjacent to the location spot on the Mythos cards, otherwise it's ambiguous, it seems like from every gate emerges a Haunter of the Dark (and maybe this was not your intention). Last thing: gate bursts and seals bursted away are different things. In a game against Atlach, every gate opening is a gate burst, regardless of the fact they remove a seal or not. In this way, every round a Haunter of the Dark will enter play; in ordinary games, you can draw a gate burst and the location shown was not sealed. How do you deal with this? Do you want to enter a Haunter of the Dark in play even in this case? What about a Mythos card instructing you to burst a gate on a location where an open gate already exists? Two Haunters of the Dark will enter play (one ofr the burst, one for the surge)?

I like the Haunter of the Dark monsters; they aren't easy, and they are not too tough, which is ok for a monster that can come into play often.

Thank you for changing the layout of the special item; it's by far better and clearer now ;-) My thought are always the same, in my opinion having 4 doomer removed by a single item is by far too overpowered. I can speak only about my personal gaming experience: after playing some games, you become good at controlling the Doom track, and having an object giving you a -4 doomer will completely break the game.

Thank you for reintegrating the Blessing ability of the Church. A couple of suggestion: allow players to do the check first. In case they pass it, they can spend the trophy for the blessing (and I'd say change the stat from Will to Luck: if they're lucky enough to find Father Michael in the ruined Church, then he will help them in their crusade; I can't find any thematical reason why you should use Will). In this way, you'll preserve the strategical aspect of the Blessing.

12 opening gates. You should balance this basing on the number of expansions you think you'll play with. At the moment, with all expansions mixed in, you have the following stats:

- High frequency locations: 24 Mythos each (not counting double gates from the Lurker) with 5 gate bursts each
- Medium frequency locations: 16 Mythos each, with 4 gate bursts
- Low frequency locations: 6 Mythos each, no gate bursts

If you consider expansion boards locations (thus locations thought to work with some or none or all expansions in) you have 12 Mythos, and 2 of them are gate bursts. So, I think you could balance your South Church Mythos on this basis, ok for the 12 cards, 2 of them should be gate bursts and - always referring to the Innsmouth distribution of Mythos cards, 7 of them should be Headlines, 5 of them Enviroments, no rumors. I won't add any gate bursts to other location, they are already enough complex to keep closed under certain expansion mixes (the debate here can be *huge*, but in case let me know).

As far as the encounters in the South Church are concerned, 1 on 7 is not that a bad chance to getting the item. Imagine you have a party with Darrell and another investigator going to the South Church. They draw three encounters / round, thus statistically, in 2 rounds they should get it. That's why I strongly suggest you to dilute it more, and change its power from -4 doomers to -2 doomers (and it will still be one of the most potent items of the whole game)

Ok, I think I covered most of the points you touched. Hope this helps!

Looks like you did a lot of work. It's nearly an expansion

I just wandering about Sister Mary. Is she still starting from the Church or from the street adjacent?

Sigh. It sounds really cool. But I don't use these sorts of components. It would have made a really fun expansion though. Oh well. See if you can talk FFG into buying the idea off you ;')

Hey, thanks for that nice and very helpful answer.

You are right, i have to clarify some of my rules.... it's hard to get them properbly ot of my head on paper... ehhm... screen.

The allys: If they are in the Street they won't give you any bonuses... the idea ist, that they are doing something good on their own instead of hanging around in that ally deck und you are right, it was ment to "put them back into the box", not to discard them. The idea was, that they got killt while guarding that location. So they are quite helpful but not overpowered.

The Gate burst / seal burst thing: I meant gate bursts (red colored mythos cards). So in every round there will be placed one Haunter, unless there is an investigator or an ally guarding that specific area. if there is an surge or an red gate opening the Haunter will be placed, even if there is someone guarding. The ally gets killed. The investigator has to fight.

Location card/Easy gaining of a too powerful item: I think of special location cards for my ruined church like the Encounters og the Goat, ii will show up with my concept for that these days. will be quite more interesting and makes it more difficult to get that item in a too easy/quick way.

mythos cards: thats the main-weakness of my expansion. i need them for 2 purposes: opening gates at the ruined church and adding gate bursts... I will try to eliminate these cards out of my expansion to save the main game from unbalancing... maybe the events on that special location cards may help me...

so thanks again, that was very helpful for me

and: i think you are a much better player than I when you are able to control that doom track... i didn't figured out yet what to do besides of some personal story or very special events so I think I will make a version of my item for dummies like me (4 tokens) and a version for pros (2 tokens)

Nice to hear I've been of some help ;-) I know the sensation, I also have huge problems while trasferring my ideas to the heralds sheets. Besides, you started creating something very complex (not only a Herald, but a whole expansion) which is *really* difficult. But the way you're walking along seems to be the right way!

- wording on Allies: ok then, return them to the box and no bonuses to investigators when they're patrolling the streets. This should be balanced ;-)

- ok, if you meant that, then the wording was correct. Beware that with Atlach this will be a problem, since almost every Mythos card is a gate burst. And you still have to clarify what happens when the bursting gate produces a monster surge

- it seems intriguing the way yoi describe the chance of getting encounters at the Ruined Church; probably, if they are not so easy to get, this can balance a little more the fact that deck isn't too diluited.

- Mythos cards: I think this is the most difficult part of your expansion to create, but it's also a major strength. Just try to create them according to the normal deck composition (10 non-gate burst cards, 2 gate burst cards; among those, 7 have to be Headlines, 5 Enviroments, and you're done). The only think you should really think about is that opening a gate at the South Church will make *impossible* obtaining a Blessing or searching for the legendary Thrapezoedron because of the gate. This can be unbalance a lot everything, I'm afraid. It's something that can be *really* cool but needs a *good* playtesting

The work seems to be great, go on!

I edited The Arbiter of Reality (I don't know if any of you guys remember him), but I should do it in Strange Aeons soon. The text will be considerably compressed (for a much better printing). There's only one major rules modification (insanity will require a corruption and a madness, instead of one or the other). It helped me compress text, and I thought it would be cooler. Besides ::shrug:: I'll leave the older version in the alternate section of my photobucket. I think that tweak is a significant improvement (provided a person owns Black Goat).

Avi_dreader said:

The Herald with HPL face! How to forget him?

Avi... ::flapping eyelids:: I need also a better Death... (I mean, the AO)

Julia said:

That revision might be a while... Cough. Eventually though.

Avi_dreader said:

Lost the original one, Avi?