Shining Aquas' Creation Workshop - Eldritch Horror Edition!

By Shining Aquas, in General Discussion

Hi, I'm Shining Aquas. I used to make custom content regularly for Arkham Horror, and have created a ridiculous amount by this point.

We're talking "well over 100 Investigators alone" levels of ridiculous.

So I figured I'd start making content for the spiritual successor, Eldritch.

This is actually something I've wanted to do for a while, but the further unlikelyhood of Strange Eons support was definitely delaying me. At this point, I've managed a slick alternative, and have crafted a Photoshop template with all the necessary elements. It's not perfect, but they look pretty close to the real thing.

So, I'm gonna try this custom content thing again, this time with Eldritch. Chances are, a lot of the initial content will just be recreating custom things I've already made in Arkham, but at some point I'd like to start branching into new stuff and trying different ideas. After all, these two games are so vastly different, they need to be approached in different ways.

Things will start really slow, but I hope you enjoy what you see. Things in Grey are possible future projects.

Extra Rules/Mechanics: Transform

Some of the content I'm making uses a new mechanic of my own creation called " Transform " . If a card has Transform , it will be in a different color (usually blue) and will list a special symbol next to the term: Transform.png.72735f1656851017ae525b8b0e069765.png

When a card uses Transform , immediately switch it out with another card, usually of the same type. The switching target will be listed somewhere on the card itself.
In the case of Investigators, using a Transform Action or triggering a Transform switches out your investigator sheet with another one, keeping all your items, clues and damage.
The "Once per turn" clause on Actions carries over between Transforms .

Investigators

Odin Sphere
(UPDATED) - Gwendolyn, Daughter of Odin
(UPDATED) - Oswald, Shadow Knight
-Cornelius, The Pooka Prince
-Mercedes, Queen of Faeries

(UPDATED) - Velvet Valentine, the Witch of Elrit

Blazblue
-Ragna, the Bloodedge
(UPDATED) - Jin Kisaragi, the Hero of Ikaruga
(NEW) - Noel Vermillion, the Azure Successor + Mu-12-, Sword of the Godslayer-
-Rachel Alucard, the Waning Observer
-Bullet, the Last Mercenary
-Izayoi, the Sword of Judgment

League of Legends
(NEW) - Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover
-Nasus, the Curator of the Sands
(UPDATED) - Shauna Vayne, the Night Hunter
(NEW) - Jinx, the Loose Cannon
-Ahri, the Nine-Tailed Fox
-Graves, the Outlaw
-Twisted Fate, the Card Hunter
-Sona, Maven of the Strings
-Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess
-Bard, the Wandering Caretaker

Persona 4
-Yu Narukami, Arcana of the Fool
-Naoto Shirogane, Arcana of the Wheel of Fortune
-Rise Kujikawa, Arcana of the Lovers

Under Night In-Birth
-Linne Yato, the Eternal Heiress
-Seth, the Mysterious Vassal

Miscellaneous Investigators
-Red, the Cloudbank Singer
-Hershal "Professor" Layton, the Enigmatologist

Edited by Shining Aquas

Below are the images for the most recent releases. There's also an image gallery HERE .

Noel Vermillion / Mu -12-, the Azure Successor / Sword of the Godslayer

vpMupc8.jpg

Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover

jotyfKA.jpg

Jinx, the Loose Cannon

ocy5a26.png

Edited by Shining Aquas

Please stop

Please stop

Your feedback is noted :D

In all seriousness though, I'm not gonna go nearly as crazy here as I did with the Arkham stuff.

...probably.

Edited by Shining Aquas

And what exactly has this to do with Eldritch Horror? Or with anything else from the Lovecraft Universe? Of course you can do whatever you want for your private use but what is next? Luke Skywalker for Eldritch Horror? Aragorn and Frodo? Sorry, not for me.

Edited by GBI

why not some folks from the 1920s?

1920s.jpg

...sorry for the hi-jack. ;)

And what exactly has this to do with Eldritch Horror? Or with anything else from the Lovecraft Universe? Of course you can do whatever you want for your private use but what is next? Luke Skywalker for Eldritch Horror? Aragorn and Frodo? Sorry, not for me.

I've been getting a pretty direct vibe that I'm not welcome here, which is fine. You guys are right, these creations are not directly related to Lovecraft or Eldritch or even the 1920's. Everything I make here is mostly personal, and while I know these characters aren't for everyone for a number of different reasons, I share them because there are still some people out there that do want them (numbers don't lie, the three I've released so far have totaled over 50 downloads alone) .

A couple things. First, I'll respect the general opinion of people here by adding new posts at an absolute minimum. If people would rather the front page be about the official game, I understand and won't force myself in.

Second, most of what I'm testing with these customs is new and experimental mechanics, and alternative methods of delivering narrative form. Arkham and Eldritch are games with tons of (mechanical) ways to express that. I'm trying to push the games to do new and exciting things, and open up options. I definitely am not here to be a nuisance.

Finally, for what it's worth, this could all simply be due to a difference in play groups. Most of my friends and play group tend to enjoy my creations and encourage their proliferation, so I don't automatically associate them as a source of shame or missed opportunity.

I wish you all fun games with Eldritch Horror, however you choose to play it.

Edited by Shining Aquas

You sir... Are a Gentleman and a Scholar

Personally, I play AH games for their Lovecraftian theme and I am not interested in custom content unless it enhances the games' existing theme rather than detracts from it.

That being said, I don't see why anyone here would have any problem with someone posting custom content that differs drastically from the theme of EH or any game for that matter. It's just a different skin over the same game mechanics. It's no different than, say, creating a Star Wars mod for [insert any video game title here]. So I say carry on good sir. It might not be for me, but it could be for others and that alone should be sufficient encouragement to keep your creative aspirations going.

Because nothing is sacred anymore and frankly it's offensive seeing the subject matter treated this way. I guess it's the way of the future. I have spent my life watching the generations of tomorrow tearing down and perverting the beauty and majesty of the past. I come to these forums to discuss Lovecraft themed games, not to see weeaboos peddle their child porn.

Edited by Meretrix

Because nothing is sacred anymore and frankly it's offensive seeing the subject matter treated this way. I guess it's the way of the future. I have spent my life watching the generations of tomorrow tearing down and perverting the beauty and majesty of the past. I come to these forums to discuss Lovecraft themed games, not to see weeaboos peddle their child porn.

Fair enough, but you can always just ignore this and threads like it. And really, when we get right down to it, this forum is just for a game and a bunch of made up stuff anyway. So someone wanting to talk about even more made up stuff doesn't hurt anybody.

There are some seriously messed up things on the internet.... Like stuff I would never want to see or read.

So I don't look at them or read them.

You are welcome to never look upon this thread again.

I don't consider this to be the " generations of tomorrow tearing down and perverting the beauty and majesty of the past."

If you really want to go down that road you must hate every single game out right now, since most of them are just reboots of the past.

No changes have been made to existing content, but I added a couple more investigators.

I'm currently messing with some experimental mechanics, and I'll post those when I have them fully figured out.

Here's an update with some new stuff and some fixes, and the introduction of a brand new mechanic: Transform .

If you want the full details, I put them in the Topic Post, but basically Transform lets you switch cards of a similar type (usually investigator sheets). This mechanic will be used every now and then for more complicated assets and multi-part investigators.

2/26/2017

NEW CONTENT
3 new investigators

- Noel Vermillion + Mu-12- . Since they are different forms of the same person, they are the first to use the Transform mechanic.
- Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover is on the case, with awesome power built around clues.
- Jinx, the Loose Cannon blows up everything in her path. And not in her path. Basically everything.


ADJUSTMENTS AND UPDATES
All Investigators
-Everyone has character tokens now. My bad.

Shauna Vayne
-Minor wording adjustments on her Knock Out Encounters

I see the merit of bot sides to this discussion. I think your mechanics, and structure by design is interesting and noteworthy, along with praise for your creativity. The character background however is where you lose most. Anime characters, Viking mythology and such as that are no place for eldritch. H.P. Lovecraft fans are very protective, as an open IP fanbase would be. Just look at all the horrible movies we have. Take your cards designs and mechanics, and add them with bootleggers, **** tracy's, jazz players, flapper girls, etc. and you will find a more... intrigued audience.

Well Psionics, you have demonstrated with your post that you have very little history in the Arkham Files Universe.

One look at Arkham Horror custom creations will show you that they come from a wide variety of places, my favourite being the Rick and Morty set someone made.

The statement that "are no place for Eldritch. H.P. Lovecraft fans are very protective" - I just thought "Wow, this guy doesn't have a clue"

Seriously dude, go look up the Fan Made Section of Arkham Horror material and then read what you wrote, and then realise this guy started with Arkham Horror and is now porting the same heroes to the Eldritch Mechanics.

One thing I have noticed is the new breed of "Lovecraft" fans have an air of elitism and seem to believe they hold the entire Mythos within themselves

Peace

10 minutes ago, LeRoux13 said:

Well Psionics, you have demonstrated with your post that you have very little history in the Arkham Files Universe.

One look at Arkham Horror custom creations will show you that they come from a wide variety of places, my favourite being the Rick and Morty set someone made.

The statement that "are no place for Eldritch. H.P. Lovecraft fans are very protective" - I just thought "Wow, this guy doesn't have a clue"

Seriously dude, go look up the Fan Made Section of Arkham Horror material and then read what you wrote, and then realise this guy started with Arkham Horror and is now porting the same heroes to the Eldritch Mechanics.

One thing I have noticed is the new breed of "Lovecraft" fans have an air of elitism and seem to believe they hold the entire Mythos within themselves

Peace

Just because that garbage exists does not justify the existence of more garbage. Of course the majority will always lack taste so are naturally drawn to mediocrity. They don't know any better after all.

Personally I'm not even a fan of FFG's investigators either. Most of them have no place in a Lovcecraft story. If it were up to me 80% of the investigators would be stuffy old Miskatonic professors.

10 hours ago, Meretrix said:

Personally I'm not even a fan of FFG's investigators either. Most of them have no place in a Lovcecraft story. If it were up to me 80% of the investigators would be stuffy old Miskatonic professors.

I mean, I get what you're saying here, but there's a couple of reasons why FFG adds characters like Wendy Adams, "Skids" O'Toole, Lily Chen and many other non-intellectuals.

The first is to improve the player experience overall. Sure, some people enjoy playing as curmudgeonly doctors and professors, but there's also plenty of people that prefer to play as law enforcers, criminals, students, detectives and especially average folks. Wider diversity of characters opens up the game to more people, which is largely a plus for the company (money) but also a plus for the community since it sees more players of all perspectives.

The second is because those same viewpoints and perspectives are really important with a setting like Eldritch. When the world is being overtaken by a force that is "alien" in every sense, it's important to show how different sorts of people will/would react to such an event for the sake of worldbuilding. You get to see entirely different sides of the world. There are major differences between a chinese martial artist training for her moment of destiny her whole life, only to find that it may still be beyond her ability to handle, and a cross-country bootlegger just trying to "do his job", a job that's getting increasingly more dangerous with all the "weird" going-ons across his standard route.
It's not possible to conceptualize the state of the world from the perspective of Azathoth. It's very possible to do the same from the perspective of Roland Banks.

Stuffy old professors might make for a more accurate story (at least from a Lovecraft viewpoint) , but it definitely doesn't make for an engaging game.

Yet you feel the need to come on to their forums and express your beliefs about what someone has created with nothing constructive to offer?

Why are you on here Meretrix? What purpose does your comments serve except to be vain attempts to insult something that someone created?

Or have I misinterpreted "The existence of garbage does not justify the existence of more garbage"?

I believe that if your mother was of that mindset then you might not exist right now, so sometimes we should be grateful that garbage exists.

What system are you using to create the cards?

I know Strange Eons can let people make there own Arkham Horror (Along with some other FF games) cards, but I haven't seen one for Eldritch yet. Could I get a download link?

Let's get back on topic please. We don't need a flame war here.

On 3/1/2017 at 8:32 AM, LeRoux13 said:

Yet you feel the need to come on to their forums and express your beliefs about what someone has created with nothing constructive to offer?

Why are you on here Meretrix? What purpose does your comments serve except to be vain attempts to insult something that someone created?

Or have I misinterpreted "The existence of garbage does not justify the existence of more garbage"?

I believe that if your mother was of that mindset then you might not exist right now, so sometimes we should be grateful that garbage exists.

Go meditate and try to relax.

Criticizing someone's work and giving reasons is perfectly valid. Especially if you're going to share your work on the internet.

On 3/1/2017 at 1:33 PM, LuckyHastur said:

What system are you using to create the cards?

I know Strange Eons can let people make there own Arkham Horror (Along with some other FF games) cards, but I haven't seen one for Eldritch yet. Could I get a download link?

I'm using a template I constructed using Photoshop along with assets I found from Board Game Geek. I wish there was a Strange Eons plugin, but unfortunately I'm pretty garbage at coding; more of a visual artist and designer.

So unfortunately there isn't really a "System", it's just a lot of manual tweaking.

I'll have a balance update coming out in a couple weeks, but I thought I'd throw you guys a bone.

Let's try a fan request: Give me either a fictional character or historical figure and I'll make an investigator out of them to the best of my ability.

I've definitely gotten a lot of flak for having "non-1920's" characters running around in this game. I don't plan on changing my ways particularly, but I'll let you guys decide who I design next.
You want a real 1920's figure? Sure, I'll make it happen.
You want a fictional character from around those times, like a Scarface or "Rico" Bandello or even Sam Spade ? That could work.
Maybe you want something a little more modern, like characters from "Stranger Things", possibly? Absolutely.

I'll give people about a week and I'll pick one. How will I pick? Probably at random, but I'll need to see if all of them can actually work within Eldritch's mechanics cleanly.
One thing that definitely helps is to give me a character or person with plenty of existing information. I can't do super obscure stuff that only you know about.

Also, if a character you want has lots of different iterations (Batman, for example) , tell me which one you have in mind.

Edited by Shining Aquas
1 hour ago, Shining Aquas said:

You want a real 1920's figure? Sure, I'll make it happen.
You want a fictional character from around those times, like a Scarface or "Rico" Bandello or even Sam Spade ? That could work.

I would propose a twist.
Michał Sędziwój ( Michael Sendivogius ) was a real figure, he lived in the 16th/17th century.
But he was an alchemist and a good one. We could imagine that he had successfully created the Philosopher's Stone. With it's help he could still be alive in 1920's and he would certainly oppose the Ancient One.

So the investigator could be named "Michael Sendivogius" with "The Alchemist" as his profession.

Edited by tsuma534