I am wondering about this card. I have a big collection of cards but haven't played the game as much as I'd like, and I was surprised yesterday at how powerful it is (especially for a Common). Maybe this is not news to anyone else here that has been around since the CCG days, but I thought that I'd ask anyway.

Hastur:
Pulp Writer - Character
Cost: 4
Skill: 5
Icons: TT
Text Box:
Cultist
Action: pay 1 to choose a character with fewer T icons than Pulp Writer. That character loses a T icon, then goes insane, if able.

I had this card in play with Victoria's Ballroom (insane characters do not refresh), and it was devastating. If I am reading the card correctly, you can use this action multiple times per turn. It seems to me that you can pay 1 to target any character with either zero or one T icon. I don't think the character has to lose a T icon before it goes insane (so characters with zero T icons can also be driven insane with this card, if I am correct). Is this right?

Actually, due to the wording and the "then" clause, I think it actually has to lose a terror icon in order to go insane. If the first part of a then clause doesn't qualify, the second part doesn't happen.

Sounds likely, KallisticBRC. I still wonder if that's the case. A character with fewer than two terror (ie: zero) can still be chosen. Can't a character lose an icon if it does not have that icon, and remain at zero of that icon?

And powerful commons are always cool: shotgun blast, lab assistant, binding, unspeakable resurection, HDY...

Yeah, I am still not sure either. The first part of the action allows you to choose a target with either zero or one T icons. It doesn't seem to make much sense if the effect would then only work on targets with one T icon. Although I suppose they may not have simply said "choose a character with one T icon", in order to allow you to boost the Pulp Writer's T icons in order to be able to target characters with more than one T icon. Still, I am unsure.

(P.S. - Sorry if this would have been more appropriate in the Rules Clarifications forum...)

The ruling back then was that it could slip into negative terror icons. So, it could still work if the character didn't have terror icons. He just had 0 terror icons, and got one removed to minus 1. Ofcourse, this causes some problems, but hey...

Cool. Thanks, Marius.

There's a section in the FAQ that addresses this actually (even if not directly). In this part they're talking about resolving multiple effects, all that add and subtract skill. And it talks about the skill going negative.

Multiple Lasting Effects: (snipping out the relevant sections)

"The net sum of these three effects is that the Young Deep One has a skill of -1" Then it ends with: "Lasting effects that affect other character attributes (such as icons) work in the same fashion"

Note, the "(such as icons)" is theirs not mine. Soooooo yes, icons can go negative. So in fact you can use this effect on chars with no terror like Marius says. And you're also correct in that the wording is done that way so that you can also add terror icons in order to target chars with more than 1 terror.

Great, thanks for the clarifications!