Julia said:

Which reminds me, I need to fix those scenarios so people *can't* teleport the key monsters :'/ ;')

Avi_dreader said:

So Julia has to rework all the dam(n) eon files? And Hugues too for the French version? C'me on... ::flapping eyelids::

As long as the storyline doesn't change so I don't have modification to do in the translation, I'm okay with rules changing

Julia said:

Well... I could make the revision in the general rules... No monsters named in scenario texts can have migo brain case, or the teleporting corruption (I forget the name right now) used against them. Is there a third one I'm missing? I'm tired :'( But, yeah. That'll fix things.

Hugues said:

Are you doing the translation? We really should meet up and talk before you do. Or I should send you a file of the complete story.

Avi_dreader said:

Thumbs up, good solution, especially since we had anyway to do eons for the different segments & rules for the League. And yeah, I guess there is also a spell allowing you to swap monsters in some way. Can't remember it either. Ugh.

Happy birtday!

Julia said:

Clearly you're getting older too if we're both getting senile together ;'D Happy New Year (again)!

Avi_dreader said:

Yep, I'm doing it, but, I'm doing it just a little bit faster than I'm doing the scenario

Since you published the 18th scenario, the story isn't complete yet ? o_O You still have some stuff behind, ready to appear ?

And about skyping, yep, maybe it could help, but the 9 hours difference doesn't help :/

Hugues said:

They're 24, dude... it's a *loooong* way ::laughter::

Just a side note: I'm late with the eons of the last segment. I'm sorry, but by computer completely crashed, no chance to recover it. Now I'm using a spare one from my fiancé, waiting to re-install everything on the new one. I probably need a couple of weeks before eoning again ::sad eyes::

SCENARIO 18 - THE DUNWICH GUARDIAN

Innsmouth and Dunwich boards in play

Investigators: Agnes, Ursula, Mary, Gloria and Norman

Kerathimel, Yog-Sothoth, Dunwich Horror: a parasite of portals and the whole Yoggie family. Uhm, wait for it... isn't anyone missing? Yeah, the Lurker at the Treshold was related to Yoggie either, right? We got him to, he was just disguised. How is this possible? No rules broken, more on that later. So, 5 investigators (again) to save Arkham (again) from the overwhelming hordes of the Elder Gods. After dealing the starting equipment, none was so happy: some missions, a Shroud of Shadow, Food, a .38 and nothing more. Fortunately, I had some good stuff carried over, so: Norm had both the Sword of Glory and a brand new Find Gate, Ursula (starting at the Woods) had her Healing Stone and Mary another find gate. First gate at the Witch House (Favour of Nodens), clue at the Black Cave. Dunwich Horror moving only as a Stalker, Agnes going to the Black Cave for clues, while Mary evade the DH to catch a clue at the STL.

First turns spent while collecting clues and dancing with the Dunwich Horror (kinda easy to evade, being his movement vey methodical). Ursula hit the gate at the Witch House (Abyss) and Agnes the one at the Unvisited Isle (R'lyeh...). Plus, another gate at the Woods, and a fourth one right at the Black Cave. When doomer number 3 hit the doom track, Dunwich became a little crowded, but this time I was rather intentioned not to fall into Avi's trap. No way I cared about it, leaving all monsters free to enter the vorteces. The terror raise was not a problem, and I couldn't care the less about the DH, which I wasn't intentioned to battle at all. Just focus on gates and clues, and that's it. Both Agnes and Ursula were able to return to Arkham, and Norm did it as well, returning to the Woods with sadly only 3 of his original 5 clues (he met a disgusting pool of nothingness able to send him LiTaS; he decided it was safer to spend 2 clues to save his life). And finally Gloria returned to the Black Cave, on the very same round she entered the gate. Ah, I forgot to mention, before entereing the Woods, Norm had a wonderful encounter allowing him to gain a Unique or Exhibit item. Guess what happened? He went for an Exhibit item, and got the Book of Anubis ::devil::

So, here we are, Gloria, sitting on a gate to Another Time, and Ursula, ready to return from the Abyss to the Witch House, and Agnes, watering the plants of the Unvisited Isle from a R'lyeh gate, and Norm, ready to return to the Woods when the Witch House surged. Oh, man, what a pain. Not for the Dimensional Shambler appearing at Gloria's (she had Martial Arts as starting skill), but for the Servitor of the Outer Gods spawning from R'lyeh. Glom.

New round. Gloria killed the Shambler. Ursula and Norm returned. But Agnes... she lowered her speed, and had only two dice to evade the Servitor. She scored a 6. Still able to squat on the gate. So Gloria and Ursula sealed their gates, Agnes failed her check, and Norm decided to wait. In the next two rounds, the 3rd and 4th seal were put on the table: after sealing (and hence dismissing the Servitor), Gloria went to Dunwich, gathered two clues, and jumped into the mouth of a zombie. She decided not to use any weapon against it, and sadly was sent to the Hospital. No Injury, so all clues lost went... to Norm. Third seal. After sealing her gate, Ursula went to the Church to spend her trophy. A blessed Agnes, with Lore max'd and a +1 Lore skill (reroll all 1s) was finally able to score the three successes required for R'lyeh, and the 4th seal was down. In the meantime, Mary was able to gather 5 clues, so she jumped into a gate at the Science Building (a gate to Another dimension! 4 clours, rolled the die: +3 clues). She casted Find Gate and returned on the very same round. Gloria went to the Church to bless Ursula (and so Mary passed her PS), and Ursula jumped into a gate at the Unnamable with no clues. But this was no problem: immediately before entering that gate, she was reached by a motorcycle riding Norm, who tossed her the Book of Anubis. Mary decided to go for a walk at the Dunwich Horror street, and, oh, Lord, she lost the battle to him, giving Ursula her clues. The round after, another couple of clues were given to Ursula in the same way. As soo as she returned, she was blessed, and has enough clues for putting the sixth seal on the table.

11 Mythos, 6 seals, Yoggie defeated with only 8 doomers on his track

And, yeah, I was about to forget it: CHECK MATE!

Some comments: the book of Anubis transformed a great horror into a docile guardian, allowing me basically to have a "free Patrice for an Injury" situation. Thus, after putting the first seals on the board, it was very easy to finish the quest on time. Even with a gate open at Devil Reef. The Dunwich Horror was never a problem, simply because, strong as it was, I was never tempted to go there to kill it. The Herald was a blast. Really. It's probably the best custom Herald I've played so far. Fun, difficult, but offering also some lucky opportunities to easen the game. Definitely worth of playing again

Hugues said:

Right, we really ought to schedule a meetup time in advance. Gulp... I'm a bit worried that you're going to miss stuff in the translation. There's a *lot* of foreshadowing in this story.

@ Julia

No rush. Must sleep now (will read your report first) then ZZZZ. ;') What's that? You won again?! I'm so shocked! ;'D

I should probably officially post the scenario so people will know what the hell you're talking about ;'D

Julia said:

I'm glad you enjoyed Kerathimel. I kind of designed him to be a lot of fun. The intention with it wasn't really as much to make the game a lot more challenging as to add more suspense and randomness into the game.

;') But don't think the Dunwich Horror will be as lazy in the hard mode :'D

Avi_dreader said:

::laughter:: not so sure I won't be not so lazy to play the whole League again, though (probably it's horribly worded...)

But yeah, you're right, it was a lot of fun. It's the first ime ever I keep on Blessing people all the time ::laughter::

Avi_dreader said:

::rofling:: yeah, it could be a good idea. Along with Scenario 19, if you don't mind and have time. Just to see what's next :-D 6 more to go!

Julia said:

I might be able to do it tomorrow if a social plan fell through (and I think it did, not sure yet).

Avi_dreader said:

Just try not to die for overwhelming activities in an overcrowded agenda. I'd possibly play Arkham again next Sunday (possibly, exam at the University on January, 10th); so, no rush. I'll certainly be able to play in two sunday time (January, 15th, I think). And thx!

Hey guys.....well, it looks like I need a ruling. I just finished a 13-hour game with Scenario #3, broken up over three sessions. I thought I had lost, with the Deep Ones Rising track advancing to six when a gate seal on Independence Square prevented a gate from opening...and with five gates sealed and Zoey standing up but Lost in Time and Space after getting jettisoned from Another Dimension. (She had replaced the devoured Jacqueline Fine....who didn't have what could be termed "One Fine Day". The Black Man took too much of an interest in her.)

However, then I decided to check the base rule book to make certain of the gate seal rule (better late than never). Earlier in the game, you see, Carolyn Fern had sealed the gate at Unvisited Isle with five clue tokens, and then used the "Third Elder Sign Fragment" exhibit item (from the revised Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion). I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. It reads as follows: Arkham Encounters : After you seal a gate, you may return this card to the box and lose either 1 Stamina or 1 Sanity. If you do, remove 1 doom token from the doom track, flip it over to its elder sign side, and place it on the sealed location.

So after playing that, there were two elder signs on Unvisited Isle. I didn't quite understand the point of that, but figured maybe it was insurance against a gate burst or something... (Ironically, there had been a gate burst at Unvisited Isle earlier in the game..) I understood the victory condition for winning by sealed gates to be that six gates had to be sealed, and didn't even bother to check the rule book, for some reason. However it turns out that the rule book states: "If, at any time, there are six or more elder sign tokens on the board, the players immediately win." It doesn't say that six gates have to be sealed, merely that six elder sign tokens have to be on the board.

When Wendy had sealed the gate at the Woods a couple of turns earlier (her third sealed gate of the game), that was the fifth sealed gate but Unvisited Isle had two elder signs on it for a TOTAL OF SIX. So did I win the game after all?

It would seem that by the rules of Arkham Horror that I did. Perhaps the larger issue is, are the components from the revised COTDP allowed in these scenarios? I was under the impression that they are, but I need confirmation on that as well. (I have been using them all along, and removed the Exhibit Items from the original expansion.) Thanks guys!

Schmiegel,

sorry, you've lost the game. It's a pity, because you were sooooooo close this time. And I admire your endurance, 13 hours of Arkham *are* a marathon.

As for your question... you cannot have two seals on the very same location. An unsealed location is unstable, a sealed location is stable; you cannot have a double stable location, as long as you don't have double unstable locations. I'm not familiar with the card you're talking about (I still have to play the revised Pharaoh) but the wording is pretty clear to me: you seal the gate as normal (Fight or Lore + clue investment); if you succeed, you use as a seal a token taken from the AO's doom track instead of putting on the board a token taken from the bank. The wording "after you seal" refers to the action of sealing (spending the clues after a succesfull check in Fight or Lore), and then it's clarified where the token comes from.

So, no double seals on any locations. Never.

How was the game? Apart from its length, anyway. Did you have fun?

Julia, thanks for your response and interpretation of the "Third Elder Sign Fragment" exhibit item. But I don't think your explanation gets to the heart of the question. That was my initial feeling as well, but in reading the exact wording of the gate seal rule, it's not as straightforward as that. I included the exact wording of the card in my last post for that purpose, in case you hadn't seen the card. (And if you're not using the revised Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion for these scenarios, that probably suggests that it's not a legal component for me to be using either....That would be unfortunate, because the revised version of COTDP is much cooler and more effective in game play than the original, and to be denied the use of a component that is "superior" and simply more fun to play with would seem, well, kind of counter productive on some level.) But I digress.

Again, the base rule book states "If, at any time, there are six or more elder sign tokens on the board, the players immediately win." This is as opposed to six gates sealed, which, like you, I always intuitively felt was the condition for winning (until I re-checked the actual wording, which leaves "wiggle room" for a card such as "Third Elder Sign Fragment" to have actual value, and indeed seems to be the whole point of that card). If your interpretation is actually the correct one, what exactly would be the point of having a "Third Elder Sign Fragment" exhibit item? The card clearly states "AFTER you SEAL a gate (the gate is now sealed whether you choose to use this card or not), you may return this card to the box and lose either 1 Stamina or 1 Sanity. IF YOU DO, remove 1 doom token from the doom track, flip it over to its elder sign side, and place it on the sealed location." The operant phrase in play here is "After you seal a gate". You obviously haven't sealed a gate until an elder sign is placed on it, and then the wording on the card explicitly states that the card is deployed AFTER the gate is sealed, which to me denotes a "double seal", if you will.

I know that all sounds odd, but if it isn't correct, then what exactly is the point of the card? Without that particular power, it would seem worthless (unless the whole point is simply to prevent a gate burst, but there is nowhere in the wording indicating that's the point of it). (And maybe, after further consideration, it is able to accomplish both of those things - i.e. act as elder sign tokens #5 and #6 and also keep the gate sealed if a Gate Burst occurs, which would remove just one elder sign, if that makes sense...?)

As for the rest of the game experience, it was fun, a very good game. (It's got something of a cloud hanging over it at the moment due to this uncertainty.) Jacqueline was devoured fairly early on, which hurt, because I had loaded her up with a lot of nice cards, but then she had the unexpected encounter with The Black Man at a very bad time, when her Luck was down and she had just spent her last 2 clues earlier using "Precognition". In hindsight, of course that was all poorly planned on my part.

One particular highlight took place when Norman Withers deployed "Milk of Shigguruth" (forgive the spelling) to get out of a nasty predicament at the Witch House and clear the streets of monsters for the other investigators at the same time (and he had the good fortune to also have the "Denying the Ancient One" spell, so was able to neither lose any items or clues or take a madness card, as well). Since he didn't have any weapons or much innate fighting ability and was pinned in the Witch House by some nasty monsters (including The Witch, as I recall), this was about as perfect a time for using this card as I've seen.. (Also considering the "Night Nuzzling" penalty for investigators being in the French Hill neighborhood - "Bloody Sacrifice").

It wasn't as enjoyable of an experience as the first time I played it, when everything was novel, but I continue to find the scenario parameters fascinating...if anything it was too much of a good thing. Another game aspect was that the investigators were awash in corruption cards (there was one red corruption card left when the game ended, at least if it ended in a loss...if it ended in a win a couple of turns earlier there were four red corruption cards left). This was a contributing factor to the length of the game and started to get a bit tedious, although interesting nonetheless.

There was also a point, near the end, when Carolyn, Wendy and Norman were driven insane multiple times in the same mythos phase (by corruption cards), and then again in upkeep (by Night Nuzzling). This required multiple lore checks and encounters in Yuggoth which started to border on the ridiculous...and somewhat corrupted the game, frankly. The whole Yuggoth mechanic also suggested a question in my mind. Was the intent of insane investigators first having an encounter in Yuggoth prior to going to the asylum or Lost in Time and Space (if they failed the lore check) supposed to pertain specifically to Yuggoth? That is, should I have been drawing Other World encounter cards until Yuggoth specifically came up? Ordinarily, of course, if Yuggoth isn't on the card, then you just use "Other" in its stead. That is what I did, and may have had one actual encounter in Yuggoth and the rest in "Other". That detracted somewhat from the flavor of the mechanic, but maybe I was playing it wrong.

In all, it was a sprawling, brawling experience with high drama. I actually thought I was going to win....legitimately. Sister Mary was at the Esoteric Order of Dagon gate with a couple of shots to seal it just prior to Wendy's seal at The Woods. The problem was "martial law" was declared in Innsmouth and she had to pass sneak checks to avoid arrest. Also, she only had one die to roll for the check to close the gate, and was using Fight since Luck had earlier been maxed out and she couldn't adjust sliders due to a corruption card which prevented that several times in a row....After two failed shots with one die (and I should add that she had lost her Blessing, for a second time, after just a couple of turns with it, even after having passed her personal story when I rolled "1's" twice in succession), she ended up squandering her clues to avoid arrest and then had to merely close the gate instead of seal it. Even after that, Zoey headed to Another Dimension armed with 9 clues and a blessing, only to be jettisoned on a failed check of some sort (lore?) which I'm failing to recall at the moment. So she was about 2 game turns from winning it before that, even after Mary's mishaps.

Yes, it was fun, overall, and intense.....but also with the other things thrown in, and the sheer game length became somewhat problematical. Thanks again for your ongoing attention!

Yeah... I was looking over the wording... And... I'm really not sure how it'd be managed. However, I do say that in the absence of clarification, play rules as written. And, yeah, I guess you can have two seals on that location... (This may be wrong, but it's either that or the card is *even more* messed up, perhaps it was intended to say that you don't need to pay clues for the seal or something, not sure).

From Julia's reading, the point of the card is that it bumps back the doom track by one. I suspect that your reading may be correct... But... Yeah... Badly written cards :'/

I'd say call it a win! And... 13 hours? O_o... I think you just set a record. My longest was an eight hour game with eight investigators (that I was playing for score so I deliberately kept it running).

Also, Milk is useful when you have a character who's a fighting tank (and blessed) so you can get all the monsters on one spot for killing.

Thanks, Avi. I don't know if you've seen them (you probably have), but a couple of other people have since responded to the general question I placed on the AH main forum. Here is Longshot's reply:

"I would run it as follows:

You make the roll to close the gate, you spend the clue token necessary to seal it, but by playing this card, you take the token from the doom track instead of taking one of the unused tokens."

Drag0nfly18 basically reiterated the same interpretation as well.

I think they are probably right...even though I did send the question to FFG customer support. I don't expect to hear back from them anyway.

So I'm afraid I am going to have to play it as a loss. Oh well. It's a fun scenario, and I don't mind playing it again.That probably sounds insane, after a 13-hour slog through it. What can I say....? It could well be that Arkham Horror has crept inside my being and made me "insane". As far as the game length, I am usually a deliberate player, especially later at night. And this scenario's rule set is so extensive I need to continue checking it to make sure I don't forget something. Lastly, the multiple corruption cards can take a very long time to resolve. But that's ok. It's nice to see them get properly used.

I forgot to add that the party was Sister Mary, Jacqueline Fine, Norman Withers, Carolyn Fern and Wendy Adams. Wendy sealed 3 gates! Sister Mary was a member of the Sheldon Gang! Maybe that's why she lost two blessings, including one after passing her personal story. She also discarded her cross, due to a corruption card effect.... Jacqueline had killed a witch with Petrifying Solution and then was able to take it as a trophy (it ignores the endless ability...I guess that's the point), but gacked the witch back up when she was devoured. (Sounds like a mixed metaphor..good thing it's just a game.) Carolyn Fern was surprisingly ineffective, having replaced Dexter Drake from the first attempt at this scenario. But she's probably a better option than Dexter. Last time around, Dexter had a lot of stuff, but didn't seem to make full use of it. This time, Carolyn had nothing, and was constantly getting pinned and wasting turns. Several times she couldn't even restore sanity to herself, due to that corruption card that precludes upkeep for investigators with corruption cards. (That one must have taken effect 5-7 times.)

Schmiegel,

I take your point regarding the wording, but actually I still go with my original interpretation. I don't see any reason for a card to mess up with the normal Arkham rules so much. There is nothing in the whole Arkham allowing you to place 2 seals on the same location, nor this has sense thematically: what's the purpose of stabilizing an already stable location? Besides, this will create a lot of chaos in Atlach-Nacha's games. I read the Tibs' post regarding the three fragments, and how they basically recreate the effects of a single Elder Sign; thus, I'll still go with the "use as seal a flipped doom token taken from the doom track".

But even if you were allowed to seal twice the same location, I still wouldn't count it as 6 seals on the board: the core rules were written eons before the revised Dark Pharoah, and since this card none would have ever imagined a double seal on the same spot. Thus, I tend to read the core rules trying to see the intention of the author, which is (clearly, to me at least) you have to stabilize 6 different locations

Schmiegel said:

Mary member of the Sheldon Gang still misses from my collection ::envy:: ::laughter::

As a side note... I'm not so sure of the meaning of "gack" (searched in the urban dictionary, but got strange meanings), but I have the idea that you tossed back into the cup the trophy after Jacq got devoured. If I'm correct, remember that trophies of devoured investigators are given to their substitute pal

Julia, you are correct, that is what I meant....sorry for the confusion. And I had forgotten the rule about unspent trophies remaining with the new investigator..It certainly makes a great deal of sense. I mean the monster should still be dead, as events move on in a linear fashion. Duh. Thank you for pointing that out!

And you were right all along. I guess our misunderstanding was a matter of semantics. Had that fragment card been presented a little more clearly, there wouldn't have been any misunderstanding. You're right, it would have deviated tremendously from previously established norms, which should have been suspect. I found Tibs explanation helpful. So I lost, and am trying it again.

Schmiegel said:

Good luck with that ;-) and... you've got mail :-)