I just had to make my own because of the great picture and idea. Instead of saying what you should have done I went ahead and did it. Hopefully I'm still within your theme.

Some Notes: It seems that investigators can get stuck in a loop if a Yuggoth gate is opened at the Witch House. Also evade check success vs a elusive monster could stop you from moving towards a Yuggoth gate so don't do that.

can we not post hecate 1000 times?

pittplayer said:

We can not not not not not not not :') (if you know what that means, that makes one of us).

@Mrs. Gamura I don't think anyone can stop anyone else from reposting an ancient one :') but I'd like to point out that the reason I and Indio worked on it in the first place was to complement the Heralds Indio made (certain features on your Hecate actually undermine one of the Heralds— i.e. unclosable gates). ::Shrug:: but of course, you can post anything you want ;') until I message FFG saying "WAAAA! SHE STOLE OUR A.O.!!! SHE HURT MY FEELINGS! WAAAAA!" ;') No, this is not a parody of anyone ;'D why do you ask?

More seriously though :') personally I wouldn't repost someone else's picture (even if it is a picture they got from someone else) without permission, as they did spend the time to find it and it's kindof confusing seeing multiple AOs with the same picture and the same name with different abilities. But there's no rule against that, just my taste. Also, "Undeniable Erg"? I assume you meant urge?

And what's with everyone's obsession with Hecate? ;'D this is the 3rd person posting a Hecate AO in less than a week. I think that's a new record for AO popularity.

The 'reply' form should let you shrink any images, even those that are in quotes from previous posts. So if you're commenting on an AO, you can just shrink the quoted image down to be a quarter the size. Makes it a bit less of a pain to scroll through.

More importantly, if people are making a lot of Hecate AOs, why isn't anyone using Mike Mignola artwork? There's a Hellboy comic in which Hecate appears as a walking iron maiden.

Here's my own effort, anyway. Sorry to step on the toes of everyone else who's using the name, but it's the only name that makes sense for this concept/picture.

WAAAAAAAA!! YOU'RE ALL STEALING MY A.O.!! MY FEELINGS! MY FEEEELIIINGS!!

Oh, I kid, I kid. I kid! But I am feeling a little bad for somehow kicking off a Hecate frenzy (Ms.Gamura, go ahead and use whatever image you want it is very cool). I did manage to get some playtesting in this weekend, but I won't post up the tweaked cards until I'm sure I'm final with them.

First game, Hecate only, no heralds, in the last version I posted. Cursed game, all right; base game only, random 4 investigators (forget which, but on the casting end of the spectrum). Thanks to hateful random draws and dice, they ended up with almost no physical weapons, very little money, and thanks to the Stars Are Right Rumor and an incredible streak of bad rolls Hecate woke up with the team ridiculously unprepared for the Final Battle. A gate never opened at the Witch House all game, so that never even became an issue. Anyway, after one round and a quick check on the numbers, I figured I'd try it without giving her Physical Resistance. That even with -5 at least gave the team a fighting chance, but the dice caught up when she was maybe a quarter down. Couldn't expect to do any better with their equipment. I still like the attack mechanic, it's not nearly as confusing as it seems. I swear! But just a snakebit game all around, hard to judge. But I'm definitely losing the Phys Resist. That -1 to Luck checks is grimmer than I'd expected, too. In a good way.

Second game, Hecate + Dreams in the Witch-House herald; 4 new investigators, a bit more combat-ready out of the box, with clues and cash as well. Funny enough, again not a single gate opened in The Witch-House! And no Yuggoth gates until there were already 4 seals up. But then that did make it interesting. Had the firepower to handle the pumped and stalking Witches, Rat-Things and Cultists that showed up all game. Got a sealing victory fairly easy, the doom track only half full (lots of monster surges and lovely repeats on the early seals). Had 2-3 investigators go insane, and have a Yuggoth trip; one encounter tried to delay them in Yuggoth, so I had to add a rule to the herald ignoring this. One nutso investigator got a clue from going there! And on the forced move toward Yuggoth gates, I added a line "...or stop for combat" so as to not force evade checks. Monsters are more compelling than Pluto.

Next up will be a Hecate + Brown Jenkin herald test before attempting both heralds at once (4 new random investigators). I set it up but I'm not sure when I'll be able to kick it off. Did open the first gate, just to see -- it's on The Witch-House, of course. Brown Jenkin's gonna be a much tougher little bugger, I have a feeling. Before I even try, I'm thinking of making his Night Nuzzling effect only occur on a 1 instead of 1 or 2.

Avi, I'd really like all three of these elements to be able to operate independently of each other; either herald with any AO, Hecate with/without any other heralds/expansions, etc. That's why I haven't added any notes claiming the other cards need to be present. So far, all that requires an expansion are Rat-Things and (technically) Stalker movement rules, and Rat-Things aren't crucial to the gameplay. But, have all three cards have their elements complement each other into one nasty, evil, hopefully will-crushing "The Dreams In The Witch-House" theme....

I should add I dig the other Hecates that cropped up. And I love the Mignola art!

I think I found the solution to Molesh. This is his new Worshippers ability:

Molesh feeds on the nightmares of children. Whenever a <b>Doll</b> monster is placed on the board, each investigator must draw a <i>Madness</i> card. They may spend one Sanity to prevent this.

<i>Relentless</i>: No Investigators may retire.

I think that this is a balanced ability, because it allows them to spend (which cannot be prevented) a sanity, or take a madness, their choice.
Also, the retiring rule would have made Molesh pretty easy, so removing that option makes him a little more formidable.

Do you think this would make Molesh a more formidable AO?

I never really liked not letting investigators retire... just makes them KO/ Insane them selves until they get devoured or find some other cleaver way to do it.

I agree, having a rule that says "you can't retire" is not a good idea. It has always struck me as unnecessarily forced each time I've seen it on these boards. If there's something about your custom creation that makes retirement seem like a good strategy, fix it in a clever way. Simply forbidding the most obvious strategy is a transparent move that smacks of a creation that doesn't quite work.

For instance, in this case you're worried about people retiring to get rid of their Madness cards. A simple mechanic to fix this would be to rule that investigators draw a Madness along with their normal starting equipment.

However I don't really think that would be necessary in Molesh's current incarnation. Now that Madness cards are only drawn when Dolls appear, and Dolls appear only as random monster draws, you're not going to have tons of them like before. Plus you would pretty much always spend the Sanity to prevent a Madness anyway.

It seems like you have two options. If there are lots of Madness cards flying around, you might consider a way to get rid of them. For instance killing a Doll could let you discard a Madness. On the other hand if there aren't so many Madness cards you don't really need to have mechanics like "you can't retire" in the first place.

Just some thoughts. In general though it's a very cool AO, and I love the Doll monsters! The child's nightmare theme is an awesome one that hasn't been done yet. It reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth and other great stuff like that. XD

Good ideas, and you're right, it is a bit of a blunt rule. What about something like, "When an investigator retires, the new investigator must start with a number of madness cards equal to the number or retired investigators", or "When an investigator retires or is devoured, place their madness cards on Molesh. These add to his combat modifier as if they were in play." Something like that?

I've also changed a couple of his sinister plot cards, because I didn't think they fit with him that well. I'll post the rewrites sometime soon. Thanks for your input, you guys are great!

MrsGamura said:

Heh... If they're willing to spend four or five turns to get devoured, fine ;'D it's kindof a funny mental picture too, the attempted suicides.

Heh... That's why I tend to prefer non-retirement *and* getting devoured causes negative effects ;'D ::cough cough:: anyhoo... I'm sick... Physically too. So I'm not going to do any lengthy responses :') keep posting.

Sothis said:

The problem with banning people from retiring is not that it's a bad way of making the game more difficult, exactly; it's that the retirement rules are a sort of lifeline for someone who's not having fun, and if you take it away that you'll often just end up with a pissed-off player whose investigator is useless. Personally, I don't mind if I'm totally screwed, since it's the Cthulhu Mythos after all. But a lot of casual gamers, such as several in my regular group, really don't like it when their character is severely debilitated. So as far as I'm concerned, retiring needs to be possible for purely humanitarian reasons.

Even if you're not worried about that, though, banning retirement is still not the way to go. If you need people to keep their Madness cards, can't you just put in a rule which says that whenever an investigator is retired, all Madness cards are transferred to the player's new investigator? You can call it Psychic Backlash or whatever you want. Then again, there's not a lot of room on this AO as it is...

Retiring people is fun. I don't know why but it is. It lets me play more people and feed my lack of focus. Plus it annoys mrs. Gamura. Also fun.

:') I'm not saying that I think retiring should be banned (it's definitely necessary for newbies), but personally I really dislike it. I'd rather be horribly beaten to death and eaten than retire :'D

So the choice is:

Be in a nursing home and in adult diapers or

Be in a monsters belly as a scooby snack.

Not much of a choice is it lol!

But what if I want both?

Get swallowed by a Zoneeater. Zoneeater retirement home where Gogo runs the joint. Don't mind the smell or the invincible running dudes. No warp spells allowed.

Lord of Squirrels said:

::Grin:: it took me a couple seconds to remember what you were talking about.

Ok, hopefully this is a final incarnation:

Hm... Maybe one other thing... Where it says, "If an investigator retires, place their Madness cards on Molesh," should it say, "retires or is devoured,"?

Sorry to keep posting him, I just want him to be useable. Thanks to everyone for their help so far!

I've created a new Great Old One, but how do I place it here?

(I assume you're using Strange Eons)

Use the Strange Eons 'export' function to create an image file from the .eon.

You need to upload the file using a free image uploader like imageshack.us/ . If you're going to want to upload more stuff later, I recommend creating a www.flickr.com/ account instead. There are plenty of free image upload sites to choose from. Once you've uploaded the file, these sites should allow you to copy a URL for the file.

When creating a post on this forum, use the 'Insert/Edit Image' button (in the forum toolbar). It should pop up a small window. Paste the picture's URL into the URL box in the popup window and press OK, and it should put it into the post. You should then be able to re-size it in the text editor, by dragging the corners.

Yes I use Strange Eons. I'll try one of your named sites.

Well, here's my first attempt of making a Great Old One (also known as Ancient One)

Lets hear it for METAL SONIC!

I know he's sorta weak compared to the other ones, but believe me the Robots I made are nasty

Hello all. Me again.

A while ago, I designed an AO called Baneb-Djedet for my fan expansion. The main idea was a final battle which consisted of lots of monster fights. I thought this was a really fun idea, but (shocking confession!) I never actually playtested it until two days ago.

It almost works, but not quite. So now I'm trying to come up with a new version, which is less likely to 'break'. Here's what it looks like so far:

Problems there, obviously:

- The final battle is so complex that it takes up the entire middle column and attack column. I've only got one blank space left. So the only way this AO can do something during the game is through the medium of a 'Worshipper' ability. I need a really interesting, characterful, powerful game-changing worshipper ability. Somewhich which makes Baneb-Djedet a fun challenge to play against, even if the investigators never make it to the final battle.

- The 'Attack' column contains about as much text as a medium-sized Victorian novel, but I can't work out a more efficient way of making the battle work. It's pretty economically phrased already.

- The final battle may still not work. I've included a clause which deals with confusions about some monster special abilities, but can anyone think of any items/effects which would 'break' this final battle? Or create an unresolvable situation during it?

Any ideas / thoughts / comments at all? I will make this one work, even if it kills me...