I'd think base board locations only would be the way to go. An associated herald that forces you to close an expansion neighborhood would be interesting, though it would obviously need to do something else so that it's actually harder. I do kind of like the idea of being forced to choose between a world-destroying rift and the hospital/asylum, though.

I could always have it add a doom token (or maybe close another neighborhood instead) when one of them kills an investigator if you're worried about it being used for that tactic.

Or perhaps draw a random monster trophy and put it on The Blessed One.

WhirlwindMonk said:

I'm trying to avoid needing to do a herald to get the full effect this time.

I can think of a few things for a Tiamaeku High Priest herald, though. Once I'm done with the base AO, I may work on that. One of the things would probably be something involving closing an expansion board neighborhood (perhaps in addition to the Arkham one).

If the penalty for not killing them is steep enough to force investigators to need to face them then it's an OK combo, the trick is to make the penalty worth it. Even closing an entire neighborhood I can think of 3 you could close with few problems (French Hill, Merchant District and East Town) and I still think this power will be rare enough that it will almost never close more than that. Also nothing should ever close the Asylum or the Hospital as they have basic game functions that can break the game if lost.

Veet said:

French Hill, yeah. Merchant, not as much. Considering how this could make monster management easier, the Terror Track would be slower to rise. And if they're gobbling up a lot of monsters, this would likely cause you to close the General Store before the Terror Track. Personally, East Town could be a problem, since I like to go for Deputy whenever possible. Between the money and the car, that's a potent bonus. I do agree to some extent, though.

That said, it is three toughness worth, not three monsters. There are plenty of three toughness monsters in the game, and since they could show up and move in the Mythos phase, and then get eaten the next upkeep, there's nothing the players can do about it sometimes.

Veet said:

Hm. Not sure I entirely follow. If you lose the Asylum, you can't get Sanity back that way, and if you lose the Hospital, you can't get Stamina back that way. If you get KOed or Insane and have to move to one of those places, do so, get your 1 Sta or 1 San, and then you're immediately booted to the street as if the location closed on you.

Closing them would be terrible for your chances, of course, unless you already had spells or items to recover from those losses, but that's kind of the idea. I don't think I'd define it as game-breaking, but it seriously lowers your chances, yeah. Just save those neighborhoods for last. If it bothers you significantly, then just house-rule that the Asylum and the Hospital don't close even if their neighborhoods do.

And yeah, like WM said: it's 3 toughness , not 3 monsters . That means it's entirely possible for a single monster to spawn on a Tiamaeku, not move away, get killed, and immediately close a neighborhood. (Or for one to spawn, move on to a Tiamaeku, etc, etc, etc.) One of the things I'll play around with when I get to playtest this is whether 3 toughness is the right amount to put on there.

However, also note that it's "whenever at least 3 toughness is on the card," which means that if you have 2 toughness on the card and get a 3-toughness monster on there, you still only close one neighborhood and then dump all the monsters on the card to the box. You don't just remove the 3 toughness monster, close a neighborhood, and leave the 2 on there.

I was actually about to ask if you had meant it to be "every three toughness" or "at least three toughness". At least three definitely sounds better.

Imagine if you're playing a six player game, with two gates, or even just one gate open. Draw a mythos, and BOOM, monster surge! You then draw a cultist plus five multi-toughness monsters, and only one of them moves. You could end up closing nearly the whole dang board in a single turn, if you cycle through groups of three toughness rather than just grabbing them all at once.

WhirlwindMonk said:

Actually... Closing the Asylum might be an issue, unless you don't mind people who don't have Dunwich (many) not being able to regain their sanity.

Veet said:

Well... Remember, if a neighborhood is closed, no clues can be gathered there. So basically if it closes a 2 location place, it's probably equivalent to losing 2-4 clues over the course of the game.

Avi_dreader said:

If you're far enough that you're forced to close the hospital/asylum, chances are you're at the point where if you haven't won in one or two turns, you're going to lose. And personally, so long as the wording prevents the "close five neighborhoods in one turn" situation I described above, I personally don't really mind the possibility of not being able to regain sanity or stamina in the very late game.

WhirlwindMonk said:

Heh... Personally I don't mind it either (since I own Dunwich), I guess the herald should be designed for people who do, since it will be better that way ;') I do not say this purely from self-interest.

Avi_dreader said:

Again: close it last. Then the game's over and it doesn't matter if you can restore sanity or not, because the Blessed One awoke and you're all dead.

Reminder: I don't have Dunwich myself, and I design for me. Mostly.

WhirlwindMonk said:

Yeah. I'm going to work on the wording a little, still, but here's how I want it to work, I think:

At the upkeep phase, you perform the following steps:

1. Put all monster trophies that Tiamaeku "kill" on to the card.
2. If there is at least 3 toughness worth of trophies, close all locations in a neighborhood.
3. If you closed a neighborhood, remove all trophies from the card and put them in the box.

This way, it is impossible for more than one neighborhood to be closed per turn, because you only evaluate toughness once per turn, and then clear the card if you use it.

Alternately, if people think that would be too easy, here's an option:

1. Put all monster trophies that a single Tiamaeku kills onto the card.
2. Check toughness. If there is at least 3 toughness worth of trophies, close all locations in a neighborhood and clear the card.
3. Repeat for each Tiamaeku on the board.

This way, it would be possible to reach 3+ toughness, clear the card, and reach 3+ toughness again all on the same turn, but you still can't reach 3 toughness twice a turn with a single Tiamaeku.

However you make it work, try to keep it somewhat simple because AOs only have so much space for text. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the end result. Also, do you want a more sinister looking raven picture? I have one somewhere...

Avi_dreader said:

No, actually...the idea was one that was only a little bit unnerving. I found a lot of creepier raven pictures with them eating corpses or something, but I decided on an image that was more...vaguely supernatural, and maybe a little creepy, but not openly threatening. The Blessed One in the RPG is not openly threatening (and the Tiamaeku are actually some of the nicest people alive, except for the whole "killing you" thing). The Tiamaeku belief is that a proper, timely death clears the way to the afterlife: that the living world is a sort of prison for souls, and that they are working to free people. So, they stab you in the spleen for your own good.

So I went for a picture that suggests "there's something a little bit screwed up about this, but it's not a super-obvious evil monstrosity."

Heh... What kind of monster fan *are* you?!

Oh, but seriously, regarding Dunwich, I realize you don't have it, but when you get it you may have to alter the herald so that it complements it better. So. More work for you ;')

Avi_dreader said:

I'm not a monster fan. I'm a horror fan. The two aren't necessarily one and the same. I think I've mentioned this before, but I believe evil is more frightening when it is not absolutely obvious and monstrous. And even if the evil is obvious, nothing says it has to have a corrupt form.

Lovecraft's stories haven't endured so long because Cthulhu has mouth-tentacles. Cthulhu could look like one of us and "The Call of Cthulhu" would still be a terrifying concept. The fact that he does look incredibly monstrous leaves us with a wonderful scene and some great descriptive imagery, but the central concept of the story: that an ancient being will one day be unleashed and There Is Nothing We Can Do About It...that's what's frightening.

I think monsters serve their purpose, and I'm not against them, but if a concept shouldn't in my mind look monstrous, it won't.

(And this is an AO, not a herald. :-P)

Sdrolion said:

Lovecraftian monsters aren't particularly subtle. Don't take away that sweet sweet pulp! But, it's your monster so I won't complain more ;') I get enough complaints re: Dracula to want to inflict them on other people.

Here's a revised version. Hit upon a way to make sure that you only close at max 1 neighborhood per round: use the phases to manage it. So now you will add monster trophies to the card in the Upkeep phase, but not risk closing a neighborhood until the Mythos phase.

Worshippers: same as before, but now if you are devoured by one, you add a random monster trophy to the AO card.

Stillness and Silence: now closes all locations in an Arkham neighborhood, rather than just 1 location. Now works on phases, so it makes sure you won't close multiple 'hoods per turn.

By the way if you want one of these ∞ hold down ALT and type 236 on the number pad.

I just ran a playtest against him, two investigators, base board only. Defeated him soundly, though his mechanics didn't come up as I only drew cultists a couple times, once for The Great Experiment Rumor and the other time or two they ended up in the Outskirts, so it wasn't all that illuminating of a playtest, unfortunately. My girlfriend wants to try it out, though, so I'll probably be able to run it again soon. Hopefully that one will show off some of the mechanics.

Maybe you could say that Cultist never goes to suburbs and instead, is killing one of the monster in the city and replace it. Closest from the point where he should appear.

Hugues said:

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's generally necessary. The game I played last night definitely felt like a fluke compared to the dozen or so other times I've played. Especially so compared to larger games where it's easier to dedicate someone to sweeping the streets and reduce the number of monsters that go to the Outskirts.

WhirlwindMonk said:

Cool...thanks for doing a test! And thanks for posting on it, 'cause I just realized something I forgot to add: "cultists do not count against the monster limit." That would prevent cultists from going to the outskirts, which I imagine would have changed things a bit. Didn't get to try a test myself yet (the guys weren't in a testing mood this weekend, but we did do another Kingsport game against Shub...we won this one, though there were still a few hairy moments and we still drew about every hard monster in the game).

I also forgot to put in what happens when there's no neighborhoods left (he awakens). I'll try to remember to edit and post again tonight, and hopefully I'll be able to do a playtest soon.

And thanks for that information, Veet: I was wondering how to get that symbol!

But yeah: your experience with him will mostly depend on whether or not you get cultists on the board, and on how many. Without them, he's basically just a shorter-doom Azathoth, and won't do anything to your game other than be a threat hanging over your heads. With them, he's a shorter-doom Azathoth who can remove some of the stuff you use to help you. I'm very interested to see how hard that actually ends up being, but I imagine it is one whose difficulty will vary game to game, not one who will be absolutely reliably easy/hard. Overall, he should be tougher than Azathoth, but unless you get very unlucky with monster draws and get a lot of cultists, I think he'll still probably be solidly medium difficulty.

Do you guys think I should also make cultists endless so they can't be taken as monster trophies and held to stop them from coming back?

Sdrolion said:

Probably unnecessary, but I don't think it'd be an overwhelming power boost. Might be worth a try, at least.