So I am looking over the King in Yellow stuff for our first game tomorrow night with the expansion. And looking at the herald, I came up with some questions that will probably rarely ever come up, but thought I would bring them up for discussion anyway, involving the terror level.

So first of all, we all know that when the terror level reaches ten, anything that makes it increase beyond that places a doom token on the doom track. And here is where the semantics come in: is the action of placing a doom token on the doom track still considered a terror level increase, even though the rules explicitly state that the terror level cannot leave the terror track beyond ten? Is it considered an increase even if the level does not specifically increase?

I ask this because the King in Yellow herald states:
The blasphemous play "The King in Yellow" is being performed in Arkham. Every time the terror level increases, the investigators must do one of the following:
A: Place a yellow sign token in the space just vacated by the terror marker.
or
B. Place a yellow sign token on the doom track as if it were a doom token.

So if it is not considered an increase after the terror level reaches ten, then no more yellow signs tokens can be placed, which I am guessing may be the case since the game only came with 10 actual yellow sign tokens. Also, because option A states to place a yellow sign in the space just vacated, and no more spaces get vacated after 10.

But if it is still considered an increase, does that mean 2 doom tokens are added? One for the terror level being beyond 10, and the other for having to choose option B which is to place the yellow sign as a doom token. Unless you would still allow option A, even though no more spaces are vacated.

Now that I typed it all out, and with the way option A is worded, and with only ten yellow sign tokens, I would probably cap terror increases and what the herald can do at 10, and anything above that just adds the single doom token as per the rules. But the actual cards do say "the terror level increases" even if it is at 10, so I am just wondering how YOU (yes, you) would interpret it and how you would play the herald if this situation were to ever occur.

I think that once the Terror Track reaches 10, the King in Yellow Herald is virtually inactive. Whatever Blights remain in play, but the Herald's work is done.

Regarding "the terror level rises" and similar text: such text can be ignored by the Environment "Happy Days Are Here Again", therefore I would say that the Terror Track does NOT "increase" unless the Terror Track Token physically moves (which it won't at 10).

Having played the last 10 games with DH and KiY, if the Terror Track reaches 10, it's OVER!

I hope that no one forgers the rule stating that once the terror level is 10, any further increases adds a doom token for every point of terror that should've increased

-Nero- said:

Normally I'm much more worried about the "AO awakens when there are 2x as many monsters in play as the old limit" rule. Unfortunately I am not sure what "in play" includes, so that makes it worse.

-Nero- said:

That is pretty much what my whole discussion is about.

Tibs said:

I believe the FAQ or KW said that anything the outskirts is out of play once the terror level reaches 10 (for the times when something other than outskirts overflow causes the level to rise). And since the the rule was made before any expansions came out, I would say "in play" is any monster in Arkham or the sky. Expansions have ruled that spawn monsters do not count towards the limit so they would still not count for the double limit, and of course monsters in any expansion board are also ruled not to count toward the limit.

The rules state "Once the Terror level has reached 10, if it ever increases again ... instead of moving the terror track marker add one doom token to the ancient ones doom track..." (emphasis mine).

I would read this as the doom token is a result of the terror level rising so it has risen even if the track hasn't moved anything that would be triggered by it rising would still happen.

I don't see what everyone is arguing about.

Lets assume that you play the KiY doesn't trigger. Then you add a doom token, simple enough.

Now assume you play the KiY does trigger. The terror track would not actually rise until you chose to "add a yellow sign to the terror track" instead of adding one to the doom track and the rules state "Once the Terror level has reached 10, if it ever increases again ... instead of moving the terror track marker add one doom token to the ancient ones doom track...". Since the terror level doesn't "Raise" no doom token is added imediately. You could chose then to add a doom token or raise the terror track and take a blight which by extention adds a doom token. This boils down to "add a doom token" or "add a doom token+blight" so the choice is pretty obvious.

Basically what I'm saying is no matter how you play it the outcome is the same so there really isn't anything to discuss. The only difference is in the first situation the doom token added is normal and in the second it is a yellow sign one so whatever floats you boat really.

allstar64 said:

First of all, if the terror level is 10, and the terror level raises again, then you add a doom token. This will happen whether the KiY triggers or not.

But there is the question, does the KiY trigger on terror raises after 10? Like I said, the cards and rules (as mentioned above) specifically say it increases, however the rules also state that the terror cannot be increased past ten. Also, the KiY herald states that a yellow sign can be placed on the terror track in the space just vacated, but there is no space vacated when it's already at 10.

So the simplified question for discussion is this: Does the KiY trigger when a card or effect increases the terror level, and the level is already at 10? And if it does, can you take another blight or must the yellow sign be added to the doom track (in addition to the doom token added for increasing past 10 in the first place)?

And I think the answer lies in this question: What is a terror level increase, specifically? Is it when a card announces it or effect (too many monster) occurs, or is it the actual terror token moving? Because if it is the first, then there is no terror limit when it comes to the KiY herald. If it is the latter, then the KiY herald does nothing after it hits 10.

The golden rule would suggest the first would be true. Perhaps we should be differentiating between the terror level and the terror track?

If, for some reason (house rule, masochism, it's Arbor Day), you chose to activate a Blight for every increase in the Terror Track, all 10 Yellow Sign Tokens would be on the 0 through 9 spaces on the Track. That's all FFG provided, and it would seem to me that FFG's intent is a bit obvious: there are only 10 "increases" available on the Terror Track. "They just didn't print enough tokens", one might counter. And I have 48 Eihort Brood Tokens that says otherwise. Of course nothing is concrete, and this can be (and now has been) interpreted many different ways. But Occam's Razor: "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one."

Let me ask this: if the Terror Track is 10, and something tells you to raise it again, would you give Diana Stanley a Clue? I bet you wouldn't.

Once the Terror Track hits 10, the Silver Surfer's job is done. There isn't anything else he can do but get out of the way of Galactus devouring the planet.

jgt7771 said:

That's what I think is correct also, with only ten yellow sign tokens, the herald mentioning a vacated space, etc. means once the terror reaches ten, then the terror level no longer increases. It just gives a new reason to add doom tokens. Plus, a finite number of blights (even though it is more than 10) means there had to be an end anyway, because what would you do if you chose to take another blight when you ran out? But if I were to play that the KiY activates past ten, then I would certainly give Diana a clue each time also. In fact, I would have added her to my initial post if I had thought of it.

Though, 48 Eihort tokens makes sense, because technically, you could have 8 players with 6 tokens each and all still be alive. But then you'd think they would have included more than 3 explored tokens, since you could have 8 players moved out of a gate all at one time.

Speaking of all this KiY talk, I played it for the first time on Friday, with a record breaking 7 players. The game was AWFUL!!! Two gates opened, and the next 6-7 mythos cards were either gate bounces or Next Act begins cards, meaning once we had 4 more people with the clues to seal, there was absolutely nothing for anyone to do except wait for more gates. I ended up getting arcane insight, which helped just so I could put new gates in as soon as possible. We didn't use personal stories because we had some new players and didn't want to overwhelm, but we should have because it would have given everyone something to do. And we randomly picked Azathoth so we weren't in danger of losing to the doom track.

The ending was pretty hilarious though. With 4 gates sealed, we finally got the last two gates to appear. I entered one, and two other players entered the other. One of them had an Elder Sign, the other had 5 clues, and they both went in just to be sure one of them made it out alive to seal. So all three of us leave the OWs at the same time. I closed and sealed my gate. Next up was the guy with the Elder Sign, who passed. So the guy with the 5 clues rolls 6 dice to close, and gets no successes. No big deal, one more turn, he'll try again. The next mythos phase occurs, and the gate gets a monster surge, which means all 7 monsters appeared on that final gate. I just lost it and started laughing, because everyone was just ready to be done with this game, and they didn't have the equipment to fight them all. I asked the guy why he didn't use his Elder Sign just to end it, and he said he didn't want to get a -1 to our final score. That made me laugh even harder because I record the final score, but we have never cared about what it was, and never held onto an Elder Sign to prevent a point loss. Luckily he had the spell that allows him to ignore monsters on his space for the turn, and he used the sign to end the game.

We are playing KiY again tonight, and we will hopefully get a better mythos shuffling than that game.

DoomTurtle said:

Let me ask you another question. If the terror level increases before it reaches 10 and you chose to add a doom token do you still remove an ally? My group plays that all terror level effects are nulified if we chose to add a yellow doom token instead which is why it doesn't matter if you activate the KiY or not (at least at my gaming group it wouldn't).

If you believe an ally is still removed then there's nothing I can say and we're forced to go to a higher power. if you believe an ally is not removed then there's no reason extra doom tokens would be added.

We still remove an ally. The terror level increasing activates an ally to be removed under normal game rules. With the KiY herald, the terror level increasing also activates his power. But there is nothing on the herald to say that the ally doesn't get removed, or that you choose one or the other. The herald just adds additional rules. Even adding a doom token instead of taking a blight shouldn't negate an ally being removed or any stores closing.

jgt7771 said:

OK I went back to the rule book to see how they worded it and yes it does say the terror level cannot rise above 10 so the semantics are "terror level" and "terror track" are interchangeable.

DoomTurtle said:

In normal play, you won't need more than 48, but what if you had an investigator devoured by Eihort tokens, which got added to the doom track (but not enough to wake Eihort up), and then you got 8 investigators up to 6 tokens without devouring. I admit that's even less likely than taking ten blights, still not having lost, and then the terror level rising again.

cim said:

You're right! I didn't think about them getting added to the doom track. I'm going to have to request they pull Lurker at the Threshold from the boat to add in another sheet of Eihort tokens, as well as 5 more explored tokens. It should only take a few extra weeks, but it will be worth it! In the meantime, I may need to buy an extra Kingsport expansion for the Eihort tokens to hold me over.

DoomTurtle said:

You're right! I didn't think about them getting added to the doom track. I'm going to have to request they pull Lurker at the Threshold from the boat to add in another sheet of Eihort tokens, as well as 5 more explored tokens. It should only take a few extra weeks, but it will be worth it! In the meantime, I may need to buy an extra Kingsport expansion for the Eihort tokens to hold me over.

"I don't know what he's talking about. HEY, PIPE DOWN IN THERE! Go see if he's eating the padding out of the walls again."

DoomTurtle said:

They should start printing tokens on a 10-investigators basis, since the "number of investigators reduction factor" triggered by multiple boards would allow up to 10-investigators parties harvesting monsters and closing gates in Arkham and neighbour cities. And if it's unlikely that someone could need 60 Eihort tokens all together, it's not that difficult that a large party could pass the Cover-up rumor and so up to 10 Blessings cards and 10 Retainers could be needed