Next time we play AH, we are intentioned to try the Creature in the clouds scenario proposed by Avi come times ago. Before starting, I've a couple of questions regarding the "Heavenly theater" rule: on the scenario, it's stated that after defeating a flying monster, you can enter the sky and fight the Servitor of the Outer Gods. Avi, do you intend in the same round? Normally fight ends the movement phase, so my interpretation is:

first round: fight and defeat a flying monster. this ends the investigator's movement

second round: if the Servitor is in the sky, move over there, and fight it, then land to any desired location (thus, if it's a location and not a street, in the AE phase, you'll have an encounter or enter a gate)

Is it correct? or it was meant to be done all in the same round?

Second point: the flying monster defeated to enter the sky can be the Servitor too, right? Could be pretty tough beating him twice in a row, but for certain carachters wouldn't be impossibile.

Waiting for enlightment :-)

Julia said:

Same turn, same phase, same round.

::Cough cough:: yes, theoretically you can beat the Servitor twice :') I see you found a loophole ;'D however it's not that exploitable (and you will be raising the terror twice). The idea was that one investigator could drive it to the sky, and another fly with something else (I hadn't thought of double fighting it before, just because I thought it would be a little crazy to risk a well equipped investigator twice— if I had, I would have had it raising terror on rolls of 4-6, which I thought about doing anyways, for a really long time, I suspect it was a major design flaw making it raise the terror so rarely, but, we'll see— I think this'll be more of a problem in large number of investigator games). I also think I should have had the Servitor return to the cup if defeated in the sky. Now that would have been funny ;') if it popped out again (I think I removed it because I figured if investigators could beat it once, they could beat it twice— still, the terror increase would keep this from being an exploited tactic). I probably also should have had it raise the terror by one whenever it devours an investigator. Definitely actually :'

I'd advise you put that in as a house rule that when it devours investigators it raises the terror by one— after all, it makes mangled body parts rain from the sky, that's got to be a little disconcerting, right?

I'll probably correct the main herald in a while (I was never entirely happy with it— especially after Rovdjuret made his Hastur herald that I felt was much tougher but more elegant in its functioning. One of my main problems with this herald (besides the picture) is that I worry that the terror rises are too sporadic.

Another function that might have been a good idea is flipping two blight cards at terror 3, 6, and 9 (that's another aspect of the card that irritated me— sometimes you just don't draw an act card, in which case you won't see any blight— and I wanted this card to cause more blight).

Oh, and as for the movement, that also takes place in the same turn/phase/round :') thematically the game interpretation is the flying creature you subdued carries you into the sky to battle the Servitor— or, on the contrary, is a servant of the Servitor and is bringing you to it. I leave the exact interpretation up to your imagination as it should be. Um, but I wanted to clarify something. I put *any* in bold, because I *meant* any. You can move directly to High House on the Hill or Yha Nethlei if you want.

In closing:

I strongly recommend you add in the 2 blight per terror multiple of 3 function, and the terror from Servitor devourings function, and all the fighting and moving takes place in one round/phase/turn.

Oh, and the 2 blight per terror of three multiple rule would only be against Hastur.

Now go commandeer a Bayakhee!

Thank you for the long clarification, Avi.

Ok for the time sequence. It's definitely a tougher task beating him twice in a row in the same round, but it'll be a lovely try ;-) hope to play with Tommy Muldoon, it can be an epic happy (?) ending for his personal story.

As far as the other points are concerned... first time I read your scenario, I thought you intended "return it to the cup" instead of "return it to the box". I'm glad to see I got the point :-) it should be funnier allowing him to return over and over again. And yes, when an investigator is devoured, rising the terror level by 1 has a lot of sense (thematically coherent with some Mythos cards making the terror rise level when allies are strangled or families are slaughtered), but maybe it should be fair also not to rise the terror level when you defeat him in the Sky. When you defeat the Servitor in Arkham, he returns to the Sky, so all people in Arkham see the monster towering the city and are afraid, thus Terror Level +1 is a logical consequence. But when you defeat it in the Sky, the same people see that the enemy has gone, so this should calm their spirits down. So, maybe not rising the Terror level again and discarding a Blight if in play could be good, or hindering the Terror track to rise next time something triggers it. Am I too merciful?

I'll play with IH with your scenario, so probably we'll have tons of problems with the terror level rising, because of the DOR track, adding the Blight allies deck, so every time the terror level goes up by one, a Blight will appear. Should be messy, but worth the tray!

Hope to have enough time tomorrow to play. Otherwise, next sunday. I'll post a feedback then!

Julia said:

Heh... This reply will be much shorter (I'm procrastinating on a digital humanities project).

The terror + clues is an incentive/game mechanic. Come up with whatever backstory you want for it, or none :') the point is it's designed to raise Hastur's terror level a little.

You are way too merciful :')

I suspect you're misinterpreting how the card works by analogizing it to the King in Yellow herald. Blights do not come into play whenever the terror level goes up by one. Blights only come into play if an act card is drawn, or (in what will be my revised version), when the terror hits 3, 6, and 9.

Good luck! I'm looking forward to feedback.

Well, the game has not been merciful at all :-)

Everything started in the right way: 4 investigators (Hank, Finn, Patrice and Citizen Kane) and an astonishing base equipment with 3 elder signs divided between Finn and Patrice. In fact, we should imagine that with such a great start everything will go for worse.

First Mythos card is Solar eclipse: a gate opens at the Graveyard, we cannot cast spells and the Servitor moves: got 5 rolling a die, Patrice allows Kane to spend 2 of her clues and the terror doesn't goes up. The monster appearing at the Graveyard is a Chtonian. Just to have an easy start (uops, sorry, playing AH with IH, a complete monsters cup, injuries and madness cards and Bokrug as the AO). Kane and Finn goes to the Newspaper in order to exchange money so Kane can succeed in his personal story, Patrice goes to the Unnamable while Hank goes to catch a clue somewhere else. Patrice AE phase: a gate and a monster appears, so she's sucked to Celano, a new doom token as a gift for Bokrug. Same fate for Hank. Finally a marvellous new Mithos phase. It's the No one can help you now card, which is the one we all wanted, having 3 elder signs with us. So, we lost some rounds while returning to AH and that ****'d enviroment card was stil there. In the meantime, a monster surge occurred, so both Hank and Patrice returned to Arkham on a location with a monster, without having the possibility to seal the gates because of the actual enviroment. In addiction, two Y'thian were patrolling the streets just in front of their location.

In this initial phase the game slipped a little from our hand; when finally we were able to seal, it was a fight against the number of open gates, that started opening everywhere. A Formless spawn triggered a DOR token (and yup, thank you for clarifying the point regarding the Blight cards, I read it just before starting the game) while a Hound of Tindalos catched the bus and reached Finn walking along Arkham streets, Same round the Servitor moved from the Sky and wanted a piece of Finn too AND we draw the card Good work undone. As soon as we collected enough clues and get rid of it (Patrice run out quite quickly of clues, because of the continue activity of the Servitor) - I mean, in the Mythos phase of the same round we passed the rumor - we draw The terrible experiment rumor. Which was pretty fine, since we finally had Hank completely equipped and with the personal story passed; unfortunately in the bunche of monsters drawn there was a Lloigor, which Hank couldn't damage at all because of its Weapon immunity. Next round, monsters swarms were dancing at Innsmouth, with three gates opened and a row of two monster surges just occurred. One investigator was in the OW, Kane and Patrice still in Arkham with one sanity point remaining each. New Mythos phase: a clour out of space appeared at the woods and moved, so Kane and Patrice driven insane (she failing her personal story) and drawing a madness card each. Kane draws the one making you discarding all your allies, while Patrice draws the one allowing you not to have more than four clue tokens at the same time.

And with all the four Beings of Ib still in play a new gate opened in Arkham. 7 gates opened, final battle against Bokrug with no chance of victory (phisical and magical immunity, -8 to hit and 18 doom tokens).

So, the game was lost, but we had a good time. Never ever had such a bad luck (at some point of the game I had 11 dice to roll 2 successes and rolled a ZERO, then thanks to the Precise skill, I rerolled and I obtained ZERO successes again), but anyway it was really fun. The Servitor mechanic worked fine for us, even if the rule about rolling for avoiding a Madness every time the terror level increases it's quite toguh, basically because you can't get rid of a madness or an injury that easily (well, actually, not having in play any DH card apart from the Madness and Injuries decks makes removing madness impossibile, I think). We'll try again to beat both Bokrug and your Herald, but not together!

So, thanks Avi for the scenario :-)

Julia said:

::Laughter:: I'm surprised you didn't play my Herald with Hastur, with Bokrug it's really watered down :') no blights. P.S. you always have a chance against Bokrug. You just need to survive to his sinister plot card where he surrenders.

I was really amused by what happened with your triple Elder Signs, and to Patrice ;'D I love it when the game jerks people around.

As for dealing with the madnesses, keep in mind, once you have two, you can retire your investigator.

Anyways, I'm glad it was fun for you with Bokrug :')

Avi_dreader said:

We triggered however two Blights when the terror level hit 3 marks. Probably not very core to the rules, but anyway we'd like to experiment a little.
I personally don't like Hastur very much. I found it pretty... boring (but probably because we played most of the games against him owning just the base game, and so it was an endless quest for clues while tons of mythos cards were bouncing at seals over the major gates). Anyway, I knew that your herald would have been tougher with Hastur, so we preferred tryng it a first time with a different AO, just to see if we were good enough to beat it. Answer: NO. Well, "not yet" ;-)

P.S. you always have a chance against Bokrug. You just need to survive to his sinister plot card where he surrenders.

Never thought about that card. Well, actually, the game kicked us and costantly, so our loss is fair

I was really amused by what happened with your triple Elder Signs, and to Patrice ;'D I love it when the game jerks people around.

Not to mention that at a certain point of the game, Hank went shopping at the Curiosity Shoppe wth 7 bucks; the choices he had were
- Sword of glory (8$, out of budget)
- Holy water
- Elder sign (the FOURTH one!!)

So, we lost the game even with four Elder Signs :-(

As for dealing with the madnesses, keep in mind, once you have two, you can retire your investigator.

This is very true but... I don't know, retiring isn't in my spirit, I prefer going on until being devoured (in pure masochistic spirit? don't know, the more tough it is, the more hard I try, usually)

Anyways, I'm glad it was fun for you with Bokrug :')

Thank you!

Can someone post a link in this thread? Thanks.

Julia said:

You're welcome ;') and I kindof feel the same way about retirement. Battle to the bitter death is my usual motto. Unless I'm losing very badly and want more equipment and cash ;'D or if I draw amnesia or double vision (then I usually try to get that investigator killed ASAP unless I have an elder sign, a research materials, or a KiY, or something of that sort).

Jake yet again said:

http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/

This has all my heralds and ancient ones.

Although I'd advise you also go through the heralds and ancient ones threads, there's some good stuff buried in both of them. There's been *loads* of good stuff in the heralds thread in the past six months or so, so I'd especially suggest you check there.

Avi you mentioned you didn't like the pic on that herald? What about this little gem I lifted off a spanish language ancient one.

Veet said:

Hmmmmm. :')

I think I can definitely work with this.

Avi can you link the image file when you update the image?

Thanks.

Curator said:

Uh... What?

Are you going to use the image above for the creature in the clouds? I found this for the pied piper. Think it is from the grimm comic.

Curator said:

Heh... I like the picture. But it doesn't really go with my card's incestuous rat-monster/human hybrid theme for The Piper. If I used this card I'd have to completely change the flavor text, plus I'd probably alter some of the card game design also. ::Sigh:: cool picture though. Had I had it earlier, I might have put out a drastically different version of the pied piper (some of my strange aeons stuff is influenced by the pictures I can find)

Avi_dreader said:

I still don't know what you mean by "link the image file." Do you mean post it in the forum? I intend to do that.

What about these?

Curator said:

::Laughter:: Also very cool rats. But if I were to use that, I probably would have made it undead themed :') Do you dislike the original's picture? If you want I can send you the strange aeon's file and you can edit it so it has a different picture for your personal use.

Yes please. I don't go around asking for others works so that I can doctor them up for personal use. I have yet to dabble in the program you use. Is it easy to learn? Please do send me the files rapidshare or how ever you want to do it.

Yeah I don't like the pic used for the creature in clouds or the rats. The Set and Wendigo one are great though. But art is in the eye of the beholder, so it's just a case of what you like and I like may not be the same. However, we both can agree that you are the master at making addons for this game. I share the same fame with the World of Warcraft Adventure Game. I am still trying to get the templates from the designers to make my own variants.

Still no reply to that email...

Thanks a lot Avi.

Heh heh heh... I just finished fixing Creature in the Clouds. It's quite scary, and very distinct from The Phantom of Truth/King in Yellow combination. And the picture, finally, a picture I can stand ;'D