i know someone is going to make a herald using the deepone uprising track...

Admiral142 said:

It's also the way that Magic: the Gathering makes multicoloured cards. I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of it myself. Good work! On the other hand, it is rather a lot of work, since don't you have to do it every time you export a new version of the card?

I think Morgaln is right about the toughness. Four toughness is extreme by itself, but the Horseman of War is just never going to be defeated by normal means.

A few other tweaks I suggest:

- Remove the ability 'ambush' from War and Death. It's nearly pointless on monsters which do 4 Stamina damage or devour you, and it's a very unfair thing to put on very tough monsters anyway. And the backs of these cards are already quite cluttered.

- You don't need the tag 'Horseman' on the back of the cards. 'Cultists' are identified purely by their name, and I think you could get away with bending the conventions a bit in this case. If you really want to be pedantic about it, rephrase the herald so it says "Whenever a monster with the word 'Horseman' in its name comes into play..."

- Pestilence, being the only one who's 'pure green', needs to say "Instead of moving" rather than "When Horseman of Pestilence moves...". Alternatively, if you want him to move as well as having a special movement ability, you need to specify which movement type he is. The rules whcih establish black-bordered movement as the "default" movement type are very shaky and the players would be within their rights to say that it's unclear how this monster moves.

- I notice that you've saved space on the backs of the markers by adding the special abilities 'manually' - a good idea, but it's not going to work for 'Elusive'; Famine's Awareness number needs to be green.

I didn't even look at the abilities properly, only saw the 4 toughness. I agree with thecorinthian; Ambush is almost redundant for monsters that already have an Awareness of -4, so I would remove that.

Also, Elusive and Stalker movement somehow clashes; Elusives avoid Investigators, while stalkers actively seek them out. I wouldn't put both of them on one card because it defeats the purpose of stalker. Unless, of course you add an ability similar to the Werewolf; an elusive stalker that hurts you each time it enters your area is a scary thought. Otherwise, I'd just give one of the two to the Horseman of Pestilence.

All great suggestions! I will apply some of the changes. I want these guys to be at least as difficult as the Mask monsters, but not so difficult they take away from the fun. Keep in mind that it's quite possible that you'll never even draw a Horseman from the cup, or that they'll end up in the outskirts, which makes the herald one of the easier ones, as well as negating all the horsemens nasty abilities. I kept the "searching for other horsemen" abilities on them because I really like the idea that they call to each other to wreak havoc upon the earth, plus that should make them still challenging, even if you don't use Har-Meggido.

As far as War being defeated by normal means, I figured he'd be really easy to take down with a magical weapon or spell, as he has no resistance to magic at all. So a caster with Bind Monster or Dread Curse of Azathoth, or The Shriveling or even Storm of Spirits should be able to take him down fairly easily. They may have to spend a clue token or two, it shouldn't be that bad. Alternatively, almost any investigator with a magical weapon could probably take War out. I will adjust him, however, as I don't want these guys to make the game not fun.

The reason Famine has both Stalker and Elusive is that if his movement is triggered and he moves into your area, he will drop another horseman on you (if they're not already out), which is pretty nasty. He's meant to be like a Stalking Rift, more or less.

Death's flying is a problem that I didn't see before, so thanks for the catch! I'll see what I can do to fix that.

Ambush is unnecessary also, so thank you for that suggestion.

As far as the borders, Corinthian, yes, you have to do it each time you export, so it can be a bit of a pain in the rear. But, it's better than what I was trying to do at first! I was trying to crop the border off then copy and paste the squares with the monster picture and stats onto a new background! That was the pits. The paintbucket isn't so bad if you can save your gradient settings as well. Then you just have to export, pop the image open, fill and save. Maybe still a bit time consuming though...

I really appreciate your suggestions! I'm determined to get these guys right, doggone it! Keep the input coming!

Ah... I was wondering how Stalker/Elusive was supposed to work.

Okee dokee, here we go. I made some of the suggested changes, and I hope that you enjoy! I invite anyone who wishes to make their own versions of the horsemen, as I always love seeing other peoples ideas! I'm not including the herald here (Har-Meggido), as I think he's pretty much complete. Here you go!

Death is still packing a lot of text, but I don't think I could really remove any of it. I thought about taking out his searching ability, since he's the last Horseman, but I decided not to, in case he gets drawn from the cup first or something like that.

I don't think any of them are harder than the God of the Bloody Tongue, so hopefully they'll work. Happy hunting, and thanks to everyone for their input on these guys!

Arg... I'm going to be out of country for a couple months (I'm leaving in less than a week). I hope someone posts some custom heralds and Ancient Ones while I'm gone :') c'mon guys. Make some monsters to go with the AOs. Turn Yig into something terrifying, give Shub someone to play with besides the Black Goat.

Okay, consider this my going away present :') I can respond to questions or comments until the end of Friday (even though I'm going to be pretty busy with finals). Special thanks to Sothis and Pittplayer (I think you had the idea of joint movement for an Abhoth Herald?), for inspiration. Seriously guys, I hope you make some great stuff while I'm gone :') I'll be really excited to see what's made while I'm away.

Here's a direct link. http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Rlyeh.jpg

have fun avi!! dont accept rides from men with the breath of fish!! ia ia ia !!!

pittplayer said:

Thanks :')

But in Venice everyone has fishbreath ;'D A Cthulhian outpost, I'm sure of it.

::Cough cough:: btw, any thoughts about my new herald? Hopefully it will fix several issues iincluding how disappointingly weak aquatic monsters are [perhaps I should have raised their combat damage as well?] and how much the new Cthulhu heralds bored me, despite being Dagon and Hydra, and official FFG products.

decent herald a little rules heavy for me but i am like that! anyhoo, the dagon and hydra heralds are lame!! so iconic of monsters and they ruin them! seriously how can they not have been inspired to make something cool? i dont mind Dagon being cthulhu specific but hydra is too and boring at that seems like a dagon add on! argh!

Hello -

I think it was two Fantasy Flight web-pages ago, where there were a few good heralds for Yig and Ithaqua. The Yig herald was Set, and involved Serpent Children spawn, with neurotoxin venom cards. I really using them. The Serpent People (or Children of Yig) were designed to come out fast and strong, and then stalk and ambush. If Yig awoke they added to his over all strength.

The Itahqua herald(s) were Wendigos, and the one I really liked was based around turning Arkham into an ice cube.

(Wendigo cannibalistic monsters and the Men of Leng might be cool, to have go along with Ithaqua. Someone want to try?)

Maybe, somebody can re-post these. I do have them, but would need to pass them off to someone else to post, as I don't have the band-with.

Avi_dreader, your recent herald has an interesting mechanism with the stacking. That seems like a good ablility for a custom Mother Hydra.

There was a Mother Hydra that someone somewhere was working on that acted as a breeder. If her skill was activated different types of Deep Ones would come into play. I recall that some of them where young Deep Ones, mature Deep Ones, berserkers, and old Deep Ones. Someone might want to take a stab at desigining a "tribe" of Deep One monsters?

4 toughness seems excessive. Now even the weakest monster (hybrid I think) has 5 toughness and can get up to 7/8. That's way too high. Maybe give them all an increase of 1 plus another 1 if they're in an aquatic loation.

Instead of flooding half the streets at the start of the game maybe flood the street connecting to a location w/ a r'lyeh and its locations (would that close stable locations like shops/depots?). That way it would make other cities dangerous as well.

I like the stacks but what happens if there's only one monster left? Is it still a stack? And what happens if one of the stacks is bumped to the streets and has a stationary monster? I'd also like to see multiple investigators able to take on a stack at the same time. These guys are moving as a unit so maybe the investigators should too. It'd probably make most stacks less deadly (2 zombies/maniacs. whee.) but you could add things to make it worse for an investigator who got beaten by giving madness/injury cards or something if they're caught in combat. And you could keep fighting even w/ 0 st/sa. If you go insane you might be backed into a corner and go beserk while 0 stamina has you functioning on determination alone. Then if they take damage a second time (or the others knocked to 0) they're devoured.

Actually, that might be a little harsh.....

Gatha said:

The moonbeasts are intended to be a serious threat, as are the skeletons (if they come out) — or if you're really lucky/unlucky (depending on your perspective on this game) Barnabas Marsh. The other aquatic monsters are intended to be a threat (although they can also be very rewarding if you hunt them— as five toughness monster trophies without resistances are quite good for trophy trading purposes). The weakest monster would actually be a cultist (even though they can do two sanity damage and their horror modifier would be higher than a hybrid's, they would only do one combat damage. Btw, keep in mind, if you're really having problems with aquatic monsters, it's possible to sacrifice a player in another town—no monster limit to have them all move onto him— then let the monster limit fill in Arkham and have the aquatics come back (they'll all go to the outskirts).

I thought about just flooding neighborhoods and the street connecting to locations with a gate. This leads to a number of problems though. The first problem is it makes the flooding dependent on R'lyeh gates being open, and I'm sure we creative Arkham Players know that no matter how heavily guarded a gate— it's always possible to get past the guardians and shut it down ;') personally I'd do it with a blessed strong investigator armed with the best equipment and possibly an ally. Anyways... I don't want the flooding to stop. I also wanted to make sure that it was happening on enough places so that it would become an issue of serious concern, while at the same time not making it impossible for low speed investigators to move at all.

Regarding the definition of stacks, I have a parenthetical remark there, "This is a stack (as long as it contains at least 2 monsters)." So yes, once a stack is down to one monster, that last monster would lose its bonuses against investigators i.e. save the Color from Space for last ;')

Stack movement: monsters can not normally leave the stack (with the exception of aquatics), and they have their normal movement ignored. The stack moves along the black arrows regardless of what its monster movements say.

If I make an edited version of this herald (I might when I get back from my trip— two months from now, I'm leaving tomorrow) I'll definitely take this last confusion into consideration. The text should contain "Ignore other movement patterns for monsters in stacks." (I.e. don't roll for Colors or Cthonians, move those Dark Young, don't send anything to the sky, don't stalk, and don't send out haunting horrors or hounds of tindalos— the only peculiar movement that would be effected by stack movement would be the Dark Druid ;'D pray you don't draw him or again, depending on your perspective, that you do).

The problem with making one of the R'lyeh gates open in Innsmouth or Dunwich is you would then have stacks of 4 monsters moving towards the vortexes (extremely fast, once they are bumped off the R'lyeh gate). That's one of the reasons why I made sure the first gate would appear in Arkham proper. However :') if investigators choose to close it, they do so at their own risk— since it won't go to the bottom of the gate pile, it will be reshuffled in, leading to, heh heh heh, a doubled possibility of having a R'lyeh gate open in another town.

Honestly, initially I was considering having text that said all R'lyeh neighborhoods were flooded, but I thought the street solution was elegant (and, if you notice, appropriate, as Merchant Distric Streets and Rivertown are located next to Arkham's river— thematically, the river is overflowing) and it didn't use as much text— the card is already text heavy. Besides, two gates isn't enough of an effect for consistant flooding (in my opinion). I liked the idea of a Cthulhu Herald preparing for his arrival by terraforming the earth (or more accurately, aquaforming). So, yeah, that's why it is the way it is (in addition to what I think would be somewhat novel and interesting game mechanics).

I really don't view the stacks as unbeatable— I mean, they're hard (although in my opinion they're easier than The Terrible Experiment, which I never have trouble passing), but because they don't retain their aquatic monsters for long, they're fairly vulnerable to a well stocked investigator who is blessed (and of course, once a stack is killed, you leave with a load of tradable trophies— paying for the blessing in retrospect and probably giving a little extra too). Just don't toss someone naked and screaming against a stack ;') unless of course, you want them to *leave* naked and screaming as well ;'D

---

Edit: oops, and I forgot to address this, if I allowed investigators to combine against a stack ;') that would kindof undermine the idea. In my mind, combining investigator powers in some regard is more appropriate for a guardian than a herald ;') I'll leave herald creation to someone else.

Heh.... nevermind, I want to correct it before leaving. I just finished the revised version. Squeezed in a bit more text for rules clarification (takes up the same number of lines though), fixed some of the flavor text (I felt like I posted that part in too much of a rush and was dissatisfied with it). I also made one mild gameplay tweak. I changed Cthulhu's combat modifier to -7 in addition to the extra doom track uncapped regeneration ability.

Anyways, here it is.

A direct link http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/Rlyeh2.jpg

And of course, as usual, an image that you can download directly.

I haven't been here in a while, but I'll certainly take time to see your latest mind-meltingly powerful creation Avi. XD

haha 5 toughness Cultists! Not to mention the other aquatic creatures...

I love the idea that Arkham is flooding as part of Cthulhu's return. That's a thematic punch to the face I didn't think of in mine, and makes aquatic monsters much more important. Very cool.

I also like the way you handled the R'lyeh encounters. Simple and easy to understand.

The stacks of monsters are definitely a novel idea, but I don't think I can decide if I'd like them without trying it. Experience tells me to be wary because it may just be an Avi-style difficulty boost meant to torture the players. But it certainly sounds cool! Hopefully anyone trying it will post feedback.

Lastly, making Cthulhu stronger is always nice. Not sure if he's killable in this form unless the investigators gear up big time, but hey who cares?

And yes I remember that picture, it's a good one! Nice job on the flavor text also. Most people don't bother. Anyway see you in a few months!

Sothis said:

Now now, I make friendly monsters ;')

Seriously though, I don't know why people are so worried about five toughness cultists. Yeah, they're five times harder, but five times easy is medium difficult at best. Five toughness monsters without resistances are pretty easy if you have any decent weapons and don't mind taking the two points of horror damage. ::Shrug:: of course, in a way it would probably be easier, since I'd expect with this herald teams would probably have a minimum of one investigator blessed a bunch of the time (more toughness and stacks means there is more trading material— arguably, one strategy for this game would be to deliberately *not* close a gate to R'lyeh and use the stacks as prey ;') of course, there are certain problems to that approach, and I could see it blowing up in someone's face).

Thanks, and see you in August :')

Hi folks,

Here are a couple of heralds I've been kicking around using Madness cards as additional environments. SOmething similar could be done for with Injury cards (pestilence?) but I think it would be less interesting. Apologies but I haven't Stange Aeon-ed them yet.

Apologies if anything similar has been posted before, I've only recently started visiting this forum again and may have missed something.

They are obviously intended for Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep. I think Nyar's version is the more interesting provided you use some sort of Spawn rules for placing masks rather than random cup draws. I've deliberately left that issue blank though so that the preferred house rules can be used. In the Nyar version multiple madness cards may be in play at the same time.

Herald: Dream's of Madness:
Place the Madness deck in play, this deck is available to investigators as normal.
1. During the pre-game Mythos phase place a Madness card in play as a Madness Environment which affects all investigators
2. Madness Environments may be in play at the same time as a Mythos Environment.
3. Whenever R'lyeh moves discard any active Madness Environment and place a new Madness Environment in play.
4. Whenever a new Madness Environment is placed in play all investigators must pass a Will -1 check or lose 1 sanity.
5. Any investigator with a Madness card matching an active Madness Environment is immediately devoured.
6. R’lyeh gate tokens may be spent at any time to discard an active Madness Environment

Herald: Madness is the Mask:

Place the Madness deck and the Mask monsters in play. Madness cards are available to investigators as normal. Use your preferred rules for Mask placement.
1. Whenever a Mask monster is placed on the board a Madness card is drawn and placed in play as a Madness Environment which affects all investigators.
2. Multiple Madness Environments may be in play at the same time, and at the same time as any Mythos Environment.
3. Any investigator with a Madness card matching an active Madness Environment is immediately devoured.
4. If a Madness Environment would ever be duplicated then the Ancient One immediately awakens.
5. Whenever a Mask monster is defeated, the First Player chooses a Madness Environment to discard.
6. When the Ancient One awakens roll a die for each Madness Environment in play. The investigators must discard a number of clues equal to the total rolled.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

What do you mean by: 3. Whenever R'lyeh moves discard any active Madness Environment and place a new Madness Environment in play. ?

Can R'lyeh move?

When its symbol (cross) moves on a mythos card.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Mariana the Ex-Nun Cultist said:

Your herald should probably say "when the 'cross' dimensional symbol moves" instead.

Firstly, it's not just a Rlyeh symbol; one of the Lost Carcosa gates has it too. Secondly, if you call it 'the Rlyeh symbol' or anything similar, you're expecting all the players to remember which symbol is on the Rlyeh gates, even though that information isn't displayed anywhere on the board or in the rulebook. As far as I know, the rulebook and official cards don't ever give a 'name' to the dimension symbols, except for the crescent symbol (which isn't on any gates), which is called the 'moon'.

Neat ideas, Mariana! Do you have strange eons?

I always think of the symbols as the dimension. It never occured to me that other players thought e.g. "slash"moves" instead of d"reamlands moves". But you are both right of course, I should say "cross" or at the very least Cross/R'lyeh.

Admiral, I do have SE, I uised it for some stuff on the old forum and I thinkit is great. But I was at work and typed out the stuff when I had a spare minute. Also I know what a pain it can be looking for pictures to finish the SE card.

I'm thinking of redoing some old Scens I had into SE format. I was always quite long winded and didn't like squashing scenarios into the herald format. Mostly because it didn't always leave room for any fluff explanation before each item. But Thelric made a bigger herald template which he posted on BGG a while back (not long before I dropped off the radar for a while, heh) which looked useful. He was eben good enough to send me a file of a sc. en I'd posted to BGG redone in SE. I'll maybe even try and be more terse and cut out my tendency to make things overly complicated.

The older hands will have seen most of the stuff I'm thinking of writing up, abeit in pre-SE format. I'll probably not redo the really bad ones that even I ended up not liking.

Cheers - Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Here is a fun one that I'm sure you'll all recognize. Yes, there is a Mr. Shadow AO in the works... Though this doesn't fit thematically, the name and picure can always be changed to something more fitting.

Constructive criticism is welcome, of course!

I love that movie, and like the idea of him using his economic power to shut down and hurt the investigators.

However, unless I'm misreading something, once you kill him the entire Herald is neutralized. If that is what you want, go for it, but I imagine he wouldn't be all that hard to take down, even with a -4 modifier. Perhaps include a mechanic that reads something like "If Zorg is on this sheet and a gate opens, Zorg is placed on that gate in addition to the normal monster."

That way he would continue to harass throughout the game.

Edit -

Oh wait, whoops, that is there. First thing. I even read it twice. Huh. Although, the way it is read, it means he teleports around the board as gates open. Maybe reword it so that he only goes to that gate if he is currently on the sheet.