Hi Mich,
and sorry it took me so long to answer you properly. A Hell of a period Work was crazy, plus I got sick on the 24th, so... anyhoo, ready to help you further.

__________________________________

Samael.

Worshippers, 5th line. It's Toughness, not Tooughness.
Judgement day. When Samael stirs in his slumber, Heaven and Hell collide. Place the Judgement day Herald in play.

Judgement Day (Day should also be capitalized; English has a different use of capital letters; for the same reasons, the following paragraphs should be worded Fallen Sky and When Heaven and Hell Collide)

Set-up: discard any starting Blessing / Curse. Then each investigator chooses to be Blessed or Cursed. Investigators never roll to discard Curses or Blessings.


Fallen Sky
Investigators never discard Blessings or Curses. Receiving a Curse, a Blessing or being instructed to discard a Blessing / Curse result in the investigator simply flipping the card to the other side.

Investigators attempting to close a gate may choose to flip their Blessing / Curse card before rolling.

Investigators knocked unconscious or driven insane roll a die, flipping his Blessing / Curse card on 1-3.

When Heaven and Hell Collide
Blessed investigators have their maximum Stamina / Sanity reduced to 3 unless already lower. When a Blessed investigator is knocked unconscious / driven insave, he must draw an extra Injury Madness (this Injury / Madness card does not allow the investigator to avoid penalties for having been knocked unconscious / driven insane) or lose all his items and clues.

Cursed investigators reduce all Sanity and Stamina losses and costs by 1 and receive a +2 to all skill checks.

Time for a new Old One. Heh.

I wanted to try and create something that was part of the mythos but that was a bit vague. In this case, I picked Thomas Ligotti's creation, Cynothoglys, the Mortician God. I wanted to try something different to really make this one stand out on its own but still leaning towards the notions of blind, grasping death. Thus, the disruptive special ability during play and the Final Battle attack that punishes you for having more players (or at least Investigators for us Soloers). The Cultist ability is mostly because what little I could find about Cynothoglys' worshipers said they essentially sought out death (though most as smart enough to not call upon Cynothoglys directly) and so the Cultists in this case act more like kamikaze attackers--easy to defeat but at a relatively high cost too.

First question coming to mind: why +2 combat rating? ain't the standard cultist easy enough with +1?

Second point: too long the doom track. 12 should be better. Even 11 could work.

Third point: too weak the final battle ability. a full health investigator soloing this guy will have 8 rounds to kill it. Should be enough to score the required success. Suggested change: Start of Battle: every investigator rolls a die. On a one, he's devoured. Otherwise he loses 2 San and 2 Sta.

Wondering about the "spend trophies if you fail" clause. Did you playtest it?

1. I wanted to leave no chance for failure. If Harvey Walters went into combat against a Cultist (which, obviously, he shouldn't) with his absolute lowest Fight rating and no spells or or weapons, he would still have, essentially, only 1/3 of a chance of defeating him. I really wanted to press home the fact that if say, someone decided to ignore them for the sake of playing a team with low Stamina all around (as some are wont to do what with Sanity being far more valuable in the long run) then they will be effectively avoiding the easiest possible kill to keep themselves from losing Stamina in addition to allowing the obvious case of the monster count from going un-touched. This was also a bit on the thematic side since the Cultists are supposed to be more or less suicidal.

2. That part I can adjust, yeah, no problem.

3. Not everything need be so brutal But you're right, I DO like that one better.

4. This has been tested twice in two separate games. Initially it was actually a Gate Trophy or 5 Toughness, and it was banking more or less on the occasional failure which would crop up from time to time. Losing an explored marker can be devastating--but essentially, it doesn't come up frequently (the only possible chances being a moving Gate or by some odd effect like the Color Out of Space causing the Investigator to go insane/Lloigor causing them to be knocked Unconscious which are A LOT of variables). In the first game I played, I randomly selected a group (Vincent, Mary, Tony and Amanda) and the ability kicked in twice (which almost cost Amanda her personal story because the gate was Rlyeh). The second time, (Kate, Monterrey, Hank and Diana) it occurred three times, but mostly because I was careless about my Sliders. Whether this is enough to justify it, I really can't say, but again, even if not, having either a board overrun with highly-damaging Cultists or a team with little Stamina would balance it out, I should think.

To add to this, I DID go into FB with the second party. I did win, but with your aforementioned comment, I chalk that up to the Attack not being terribly difficult to withstand.

Not much time now to cover your answer properly (I'll return here later today / tomorrow), just wanted to explain a point about FB: if FB is too easy, then you'll have people playing only for FB. So, instead of spending trophies for failed checks, they will save them to buy Blessings and stuff and then, when the AO wakes up, they will nuke her down. If you scare players with the idea of a FB very tough (not necessarily impossible, but something they are most likely to lose), then you "force" them to focus on gameplay, and actually your AO becomes something they have to deal with.

Hope this has some sense

Talk later

Oh I get it, most definitely. I think I have trouble the most with FBs BECAUSE I am afraid of them myself! XD

Ok, some more time to think about your answer. I'm not so sure I get the point about low on Stamina investigators having problems with Cultists: if the mod were lower, what would have happened? The odds of ending up crippled would have been greater, not lower, with the additional contra that it'd have been more likely two combat checks to be required in order to pass so that a 3-Sta character would have been in greater peril.

Thanks for the feedback on playtesting. Point is that you need some "cash" monsters to be sure, and 5-toughness could be a lot, especially because the main sealer is often not the monster whacker. Still, you have to spend the trophies only if you fail, so that this could actually encourage some heavy-on-Blessings strategy. Dunno, really. When you platested this, how many expansions were in the mix? Lurker gates or not? It's something really difficult to judge.

Lurker yes, since it was one of the way I listed as being the only way to really 'lose' a marker. Beyond that, I stuck with the base board.

Ok. This has sense. I'm afraid that with multiple expansion boards some problems could arise. Generally speaking, vanilla Arkham games tend to be longer with only the core board in play, with several ways to catch moments to respite, so that losing an explored marker could be bad, but not fatal. Playing with an Innsmouth board and losing the explorer marker at Devil Reef... well...

For core game board in play only, the AO is good, though.

Heh, as you well know, Julia, I am a coward and have yet to touch Innsmouth! XD I whimper everytime my hand brushes it and its unspeakable evil when I use the Other World locations on it.

:laughter: you ain't no coward Faust. Simply, each board has its learning curve, and there is no rush in anything. The only thing I was implying is that, even though I really want to, I'm not able to give you any better advice on the AO because it's too different from the usual stuff that the only thing feasible is testing with different options to check whether it's actually beatable or not. And I'm sorry for not being able to further help

Oh you've been a huge help already! And saying that 'it's so different' really made my night! I wanted to create an AO that was still viable but just from such an odd angle that it made things tricky or shook up the regular play!

Then it's certainly mission accomplished

Time for a new Old One. Heh.

I wanted to try and create something that was part of the mythos but that was a bit vague. In this case, I picked Thomas Ligotti's creation, Cynothoglys, the Mortician God. I wanted to try something different to really make this one stand out on its own but still leaning towards the notions of blind, grasping death. Thus, the disruptive special ability during play and the Final Battle attack that punishes you for having more players (or at least Investigators for us Soloers). The Cultist ability is mostly because what little I could find about Cynothoglys' worshipers said they essentially sought out death (though most as smart enough to not call upon Cynothoglys directly) and so the Cultists in this case act more like kamikaze attackers--easy to defeat but at a relatively high cost too.

Let Michael or Harvey fight this Ancient One alone and there is no way to lose the Final Battle.

Ex.

Michael always chooses to lose 1 stamina(and reduses the loss to 0 due to Strong Body ability);

Harvey always chooses to lose 1 sanity(and reduses the loss to 0 due to Strong Mind ability).

In either case they cannot be devoured!

Problem solved on the Invincible Investigators!

Wow, sixty pages already. D:

I have to look through these. Maybe it would be easier, if all Ancients Ones would be linked in the first post. Lot of work for someone, though.

Anyway. I created a new Acnient One myself and playtested him the last days. I think he works now, even if in my opinion he's a little too weak since he's not really interrupting the players in closing and sealing gates.

I wanted to create one to focus on flying monsters ... and in games with him there can be quiete a lot of them.

So here he is. I'm not a native speaker, so please correct me, if there are mistakes on his sheet. And also, if you might have a better name for him. This one was my head hitting the keyboard three times.

Illustration by me.

Whorshippers:

Seghtejt is worshipped by all kinds of flying terrors. All flying monsters have toughness 3.
If a flying monster would be gained as a trophy or returned to the monster cup, return it to the sky instead.

Ability:

When Seghtejt is selected as Ancient One, place 3 Byhakees and 1 Flying Polyp on the sky.
Flying monsters do not count toward the monster limit.
The sky is always adjacent to the first player's location.

Start of Battle:

X is the number of flying monsters in locations and street areas or the sky - whatever is higher.

Attack:

Each investigator must pass a speed (+1) check or lose X Stamina. This check's modifier decreases by 1 each turn.

Wow, sixty pages already. D:

I have to look through these. Maybe it would be easier, if all Ancients Ones would be linked in the first post. Lot of work for someone, though.

Anyway. I created a new Acnient One myself and playtested him the last days. I think he works now, even if in my opinion he's a little too weak since he's not really interrupting the players in closing and sealing gates.

I wanted to create one to focus on flying monsters ... and in games with him there can be quiete a lot of them.

So here he is. I'm not a native speaker, so please correct me, if there are mistakes on his sheet. And also, if you might have a better name for him. This one was my head hitting the keyboard three times.

Illustration by me.

Whorshippers:

Seghtejt is worshipped by all kinds of flying terrors. All flying monsters have toughness 3.

If a flying monster would be gained as a trophy or returned to the monster cup, return it to the sky instead.

Ability:

When Seghtejt is selected as Ancient One, place 3 Byhakees and 1 Flying Polyp on the sky.

Flying monsters do not count toward the monster limit.

The sky is always adjacent to the first player's location.

Start of Battle:

X is the number of flying monsters in locations and street areas or the sky - whatever is higher.

Attack:

Each investigator must pass a speed (+1) check or lose X Stamina. This check's modifier decreases by 1 each turn.

Can the investigators find themselves with no flying monsters on the board? If yes, then is X=0?

If you increased X by 1 each turn of the Final Battle, thhen Seghtejt would be significantly more difficult!

Seghtejt is ridiculous.

So, you start the game with 3 Byhakee's that all have 3 toughness, and a Flying Polyp which is probably the second strongest flying monster in the game. Okay, that's rude but it can be handled. Not making flying monsters count against the monster limit is an ability with tradeoffs on both sides so it's fine on its own (harder for terror to rise, more monsters to deal with).

The major problem is with the main worshiper ability combined with the attack.

Flying monsters can't be eliminated at all. If you kill one, no matter how it's done, it goes back to the sky. That means every single flying monster drawn from the cup is permanent, none of them will ever leave. Not to mention almost all of them are unreasonable to fight in the first place due to them all being 3 toughness. Since getting more flying monsters just continually pumps up the Ancient One's fighting ability and there's no way to stop it, the entire game becomes more or less a crap shoot.

For the most part the ancient one is okay, but it's pretty much completely lacking any form of counterplay. You either win or you lose, but it's pretty much entirely out of your hands which is both frustrating and boring.

Alright, I know this thread is old as dirt, but I'll post none-the-less

I only play with the base game (I ordered a bunch of the expansions, but they haven't arrived yet), and so, these custom creations are designed to be challenging with just the base game. Since it is normally very rare for the base-set AOs to awaken with just the base game in play (in 4 investigator games), most, if not all the AOs I make are designed to speed the process along. Unintended results may occur if playing with expansions! The ones I make are generally not based on any Lovecraft-related lore, but at the same time aren't characters you typically find in video games either.

So, first one:

Abu al-Hol

Combat Rating: -∞ Defenses: Weapon Immunity

Doom Track length: 1

Worshippers:

Abu al-Hol's worshippers ask the riddle of the Sphinx. Before making a combat check against a Cultist , pass a Lore (-1) check or be devoured .

Power: Father of Terror

Unless the Terror level is 10, whenever a doom token should be added to this sheet, increase the Terror level instead.

In Final Battle , the number of successes to remove one doom token is 2 for 1-2 players; 3 for 3-4 players; 4 for 5-6 players; 5 for 7-8 players.

Start of Battle

Set the Terror level to 10, then add X doom tokens to the Ancient One's sheet, where X is 5 minus the number of elder sign tokens on the board. Discard all Items, Skills and Blessings . Investigator abilities may not be used in the battle.

My comments:

Abu al-Hol, means "Father of Terror", which is an egyptian name of the Sphinx. As with many depictions of the Sphinx, the art on the card makes the Sphinx look female, but I choose to ignore this fact (the Sphinx is female in at least some mythological stories, but I'm no expert). Art by NathanRosario (DeviantArt).

I wanted to be a bit creative, and come up with ideas for making a really short Doom Track work (for no reason at all). Using the Terror Track as a pseudo-doomtrack, makes the effective doom track 11, but with no ways of reducing it with Elder Signs, and any increase in Terror level will bring forth the end that much quicker. The Doom Track length of 1 is almost unchangeable without changing other parameters as well, due to the final battle mechanics.
The idea for the Final battle is as follows - the only way to deal damage, is by spending Clues. The attack of the AO is largely irrelevant, as you will spend all clue tokens on the first turn - it just prevents an infinite loop. The reasoning behind increasing the requiresed successes per Doom Token is partly to avoid some problems with low investigator numbers - Without it, the amount of clues you would need with a single investigator to 'expect victory' (i.e, 1 in 3 rolls being a success, which gives roughly 55% chance of success, higher the smaller the sample) WITHOUT SEALING A SINGLE GATE is only 18 - while getting a sealing victory generally requires 30, and a lot more moving around. By increasing it to 2, it becomes 36, which I find reasonable. At the same time, with 8 players you would need 24 clues to stand a decent chance.
The battle is designed to be nigh impossible if you weren't very close to a sealing victory, especially with higher investigator numbers. It is supposed to be possible to win in battle with any number of investigators if you have 5 Elder Sign tokens on the board, and still a decent chance with only 4 tokens, if you play 1-4 investigators.

I played around with lots of different ways to alter the successes needed for a 'smoother curve', (i.e not being terribly easy on low investigators and completely impossible with higher numbers), and although a little clunky, this final solution was the most balanced I could come up with.

Strange Eons file will be supplied when I feel it has been finalized. So far, I have not yet playtested it.

Second one. Not very consistent thematically, but implements several ideas I had. Might scrap it all together, but re-use the abilities on other AOs.

Yoanath

Combat rating: -6 Defenses: None

Doom Track Length: 14

Worshippers :

Yoanath's worshippers are Doomsayers, and wish for nothing but the destruction of this world. <b>Cultists</b> gain 1 toughness and 1 Stamina damage for every 3 doom tokens on the Ancient One's doom track.

Power: True Terror

Whenever the Outskirt limit is reached, a gate is opened, but no monster spawns from it. Roll 3 dice and add them together to determine the location; 3-8: Newspaper; 9-10: Train Station; 11-12: Velma's Diner; 13-18: Library. If there is already a gate in the location, increase the terror level again instead of opening a gate. Monsters will spawn from it during Monster Surges . Gates in stable locations cannot be sealed , yet count toward the gate total.

Attack

Each investigator must make a Luck (+0) check . If they fail, they are Blessed , and if they pass, they are Cursed . Any investigator who fails the check and already has a Blessing , is devoured.
This check's modifier decreases by 1 each turn.

Comments:

Will fix some bold/capitalization errors when finalizing.

This one is designed with just the main board in mind, but it could work with expansions and small box sets - I do not own them at the time of creation, and so I don't know. The ability takes a lot of words, but I feel they are all necessary. Art by ScottPurdy (DeviantArt).

The Worshippers' ability is arbitrary. I didn't want to make it too much of nuisance, but it really has no connection to the other aspects theme-wise. The same goes for the Final Battle Attack - I think the mechanic is really cool, I have yet to see anything like it. The Final Battle has been playtested a few times just to see how it turns out. Balancing between Blessed and normal is crucial to have even a slight chance of winning. The final battle is meant to be fairly difficult, approximately on par with Cthulhu, perhaps slightly harder.

Note after a few tests: A -6 modifier seems about right if the group gears for the final battle. Character with a focus of 1 will have less control in the first few turns, and may have to end up Cursed for one turn, in order to not be devoured or have to spend clues for the Luck check 2 turns later. If the average investigator can manage a combat strength of 10~ (spells can be used easily on the later turns, when your luck will be 0 no matter what you do), and has 4~ clues, they stand a decent chance of winning. If they are a little worse equipped, tough luck. In other words, you have basically no chance to win in combat unless you prepare well, but if you do, it's possible.

Abu al-Hol

It's almost impossible to win against this Ancient One, and I'm not just talking about his attack.

So, every turn the Terror Level goes up, which means in 3 turns you lose the General Store, and in roughly 7-8 turns you lose the Curio Shop. Even if you get lucky enough to get multiple bounces, it usually means you are getting monster surges, which eventually turn into filled outskirts which turns into more terror level.

So the only way to combat the Ancient One is with Seals, which force you to spend clue tokens sealing locations...but that also makes you unable to fight the Ancient One if it wakes up, which it probably will since it's effectively a 10 track with methods of acceleration. Oh, and Elder Signs, which seem like a great countermeasure against this Ancient One, are terrible since they can't push back the terror level.

You have a fairly thematic Ancient One which is great, but it's just a little too strong in my opinion.

Yoanath

Generally speaking, gates should never be open on a stable location. Part of the role of stable locations is to be a safe ground for investigators with the tradeoff being you can't make advances in the investigation without putting yourself at risk. Having gates open on stable locations simply breaks too many fundamental functions about the game, especially since you can't seal a stable location or street area under any condition.

Another thing is that Cultists need to be given a limit to how large they can grow. If the track is 9 out of 14, cultists are 4 toughness monsters that deal 4 stamina damage. The fact that they keep getting bigger is nuts.

Otherwise it's probably fine, the general idea works for the most part.

Gates in stable locations cannot be sealed , yet count toward the gate total.

That's Arkham Horror normal rules, no need to specify that

Seghtejt is ridiculous.

[...]

For the most part the ancient one is okay, but it's pretty much completely lacking any form of counterplay. You either win or you lose, but it's pretty much entirely out of your hands which is both frustrating and boring.

After some more games I guess you're right. I changed its worshipper ability and think it's working now.

Though I feel like it's still a little bit too easy.

And here's another one.

Yere are many Ancient Ones. Choose a new X and yo receive a new Ancient One.

Game Setup: choose X from 0 to 3.

Worshippers: All Cultists are treated as Riots(i.e. are Endless, gain +2 toughness,-5 combat rating,+3 combat damage,overwhelming 1 and when a cultict is defeated,roll a die and raise the terror level by 1 on a 4-6). If X is 0, then Maniacs are also treated as Riots.

Power:

Evil calls evil:

Each time a Mythos card is drawn , roll a die. If the result is X or less, draw and resolve another Mythos card(which can also trigger the power, and so on and so forth)

Enormous cult: Each time a monster surge occurs, search the monster cup for a cultist(if X=0, then you can search for a Maniac too) and replace it with one of the monsters spawned. If you did not find one, then add 2 doom tokens to the doom track

Combat rating: X-6.

Attack:

If X is 0 then the game is over and the investigators lose.

Else Roll a die for each doom token on this sheet. If the result is X or less then every investigator pays 1 stamina, add a doom token on the doom track and roll a die for it.

Defences: none.

Doom track: 13.

Which X balances it?

For an easier game one may ignore Enormous Cult.