Greetings from Norway

I´m in the second scenario in the «Night of the Zealot». I´m in the Graveyard where

*Herman Collins is as well.

His card says:

>> Choose and discard 4 cards from your hand:

Parley. Add Herman Collins to the victory display.

What does this mean? I take an action and discard 4 cards. OK. So what?

Is discarding the 4 cards the actually parleying , so I can put the card right in the victory display

or are there some kind of skill test involved before I can put it in the victory display,

and if I fail the test, do I have to use another 4 cards to do the test again?

The rules are a bit unclear to me on the topic Parley.

In the RULES REFERENCE in page 16 I find:

Parley

Some abilities are identified with a Parley action designator.

Such abilities are initiated using the «Activate» action (see «Activate Action» on page 4).

So far so good. I have activated the Parley action by discarding 4 cards.

I expected then to find an further explanation of the Parley action on page 4, but what do I find

there:

Activate Action

«Activate» is an action........ (and so on).

There is nothing on the Parley action, but two sentences read:

When performing an activate action, all of this action´s cost are

simultaneously paid. Then, the consequences of that action resolve.

I do interperate this to mean that by paying the 4 cards, I have already done the parleying and I can add the Herman Collins card the victory display, without taking more steps.

Strange way of parleying, but OK, if this is the right interperation.

What are confusing is the use of the word Parley on the card. Why not just let the card read:

>> Choose and discard 4 cards from your hand and add Herman Collins to the victory display.

Same effect without using the confusing Parley word.

In this case, the cost of activating the Parley ability is to discard 4 cards from your hand. The effect of the Parley ability is to add Herman Collins to the Victory display. The card does not prompt you to do any sort of skill check, therefore there is not one involved.

Parley is an important keyword that denotes some special rules that apply to the situation. Primarily, activating a Parley ability does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If the wording were as you suggested, Herman Collins (as well as any other enemies at the graveyard) would attack the investigator as they preformed this ability.

The action you are taking is an Activate Action. But when an ability has the name of another kind of action in bold -- such as Parley -- you treat is as that kind of action. This has many repercussions, but in this case, the most significant is that Parley is one of the types of action that doesn't cause an Attack of Opportunity. Without Parley there, if Herman was engaged with you, he'd get to attack you before you got rid of him.

Thank you both.

Have fun!