1) Prepare a separate monster cup for all the masks.

2) Each time a monster surge occurs, draw a random mask and put it in play on the surging gate. If a generic monster surge occurs as a result of a specific Mythos card(that is, with no gate opening location), a mask would emerge from every open gate on the board.

3)Masks are spawn monsters; they don't count against the monster limit, and are not removed from the board when a gate with their dimensional symbol is closed or sealed.

4) Each time an investigator defeats a mask, return it to the masks' cup, unless he can ignore their Endless ability. Any masks that are claimed as monster trophies can be spent as Clue tokens for the purpose of sealing gates and in final battle against Nyarlothotep.

5) Each time a mask is evaded , put it on Nyarlothotep's sheet along with a Clue token from the bank.

6) For each mask on Nyarlothotep's sheet, the total amount of Clue tokens required to seal a gate is increased by 1.

7) Should Nyarlothotep awaken, all mask monsters on its sheet must be defeated before proceeding to final battle.

zealot12 said:

A few issues. First of all, there's not that much here, you should probably just make it into a herald (there'd be enough room on the card). Do you not use Strange Aeons yet?

Second, you might want to clarify if how point five will work with Shadowy Figure (who you have to evade to fight). Also, why put a clue on Nyarlathotep's sheet? The mask is already a marker.

For point seven you need to clarify how combat with the masks works. Also, keep in mind Nyarlathotep will *still* be a pushover in final combat with your variant ;') so you might want to think about something to raise his final battle power (whether it's tied to masks on the board, something else, or just a permanently modified something).

For point two, you need to clarify what happens if there are no masks to place for surges.

A few streamlining points:

For part 3, you don't need to state that they don't count against the limit because spawn monsters don't count against the limit already.

For part 4, you don't really need the first half of that since that part is also built into the spawn monster ability, you may want to add a note about where to return them in #3 after you state they are spawn monsters like: "Masks are Spawn monsters that return to the mask cup when defeated"

I'll revise it a bit.

And it's definitely more of a herald than a full-fledged variant. I have Strange Eons installed but haven't used it yet.

The Clue token in item 5 simply serves as an extra reminder that the effect is a clue token modifier. Otherwise, it's redundant.

5. Each time a Mask is evaded, put it on Nyarlothotep's sheet(Exception:The elusive mask monster can only be evaded for the purpose of engaging it in combat. It cannot be placed on Nyarlothotep's sheet.)

7. Should Nyarlothotep awaken, all mask monsters on its sheet must be defeated before proceeding to final battle. All the investigators and the masks are considered to be in the same location for this purpose. Each investigator in order(starting from the first player) must fight/evade all remaining masks.

Each player gets one upkeep phase to adjust his sliders and refresh any cards before combat with the masks.Any masks that are evaded will have to be encountered by the next investigator(s). All the masks must be defeated in one turn , otherwise all investigators are devoured and the game is over.

Just to clarify, the last bit: if the last investigator who encounters the remaining masks doesn't defeat them, all investigators are devoured.

8. Each time a monster surge occurs, and there aren't any masks in the cup, raise the terror level by 2 and draw only regular monsters instead.

I'm just improvising here, so it's a bit messy. I'll try out this "herald" in our next session to see how it goes.

That'll work. But I still think final battle will be way too easy. I mean, how many masks will be on Nyarlathotep? One? Maybe?

Just an idea: for all masks on the board, then, during final battle, every doomer requires an extra success to be removed from the AO doom track

Julia said:

It'll still be easy to get a win against this provided you target the masks for killing and horde clues.

How about making the first player fight two random masks at the beginning of each round of combat?

Also, if you take out masks from the normal cup, this causes a bug with one of the sinister plots. Take a look at them and plug it up somehow.

Okay, a couple more key fixes. Here's the whole "herald/variant rewritten.

1. Prepare a separate monster cup and put all mask monsters in it.

2. All masks are spawn monsters (they don't count against the monster limit and are not returned to the cup when a gate with their dimensional symbol is sealed or closed).They can be taken as trophies, however, if the investigators can ignore their Endless ability.Any masks taken as trophies can be used as clue tokens on a 1-1 basis for the purpose of sealing gates and in final battle against Nyarlothotep.

3. a) All masks are stalkers(with the exception of the elusive mask).

b) Each time the elusive mask moves, it moves to the nearest location with clue tokens.If there are two or more equally distanced locations with clue tokens, it moves to the location with the most clue tokens. If there are two or more equally distanced locations with the same number of clue tokens, the first player decides where to put it

4. a) Each time a monster surge occurs, draw a random mask from the cup and put it on the surging gate. It moves regardless of its dimensional symbol to an investigator in a street area or location nearest to the surging gate. If there are two or more equally distanced investigators,it moves to the investigator with the lowest unmodified Fight stat.

Exception: if drawn during a monster surge, the elusive mask monster moves to the nearest location containing clue tokens.

b) If a generic monster surge occurs as a result of a no-gate Mythos card, masks appear at the location/street area of every investigator in Arkham.Treat those monsters as those who emerged from the open gates, and complete the quota with regular monsters if needed.

5. All monsters in encounters are masks.

6. Any time a mask monster is evaded(whether in an encounter or on the board), put it on Nyarlothotep's sheet. For each monster on Nyarlothotep's sheet, increase the total amount of Clue tokens required to seal a gate by 1.

7. Each time when a mask(or masks) should be drawn for any purpose and there aren't any in the cup(or there aren't enough in the cup), raise the terror level by 2 and draw/complete the quota with regular monsters instead.

8.a) Should Nyarlothotep awaken, all masks on its sheet must be defeated in a single turn before proceeding to final battle. If investigators fail to defeat al the masks in a single turn, they're devoured and the game is over.

All the investigators and the masks are considered to be in the same location for the purpose of this combat. Starting from the first player, each investigator encounters all the remaining masks on his turn.

b) Each investigator gets one upkeep phase before combat with the masks to adjust his skill sliders and refresh any cards/cast upkeep spells.

c). Any masks that are evaded in this combat, will have to be encountered by the next investigator(s).

d). Clarification to 8a.: If the last investigator doesn't defeat the remaining masks during his turn, all investigators are devoured.

Forgot to include these:

* the elusive mask cannot be put it on Nyarlothotep's sheet. It is only evaded for the purpose of engaging it in combat.

** Mask monsters move directly to investigators in Arkham only when drawn as a result of a monster surge. If there are no investigators in Arkham when a monster surge occurs, or if a mask is already present on the board, they move as per their normal movement, according to the movement pattern.

" b) Each time the elusive mask moves, it moves to the nearest location with clue tokens.If there are two or more equally distanced locations with clue tokens, it moves to the location with the most clue tokens. If there are two or more equally distanced locations with the same number of clue tokens, the first player decides where to put it"

That's how Shadowy Figure normally moves (except he doesn't target highest number of closest clues first).

For final combat, how about instead of making investigators fight 1-2 masks prior to final combat, how about just making them fight *all* of them (or if you think that's too tough, make it a random five or something).

Also, making evading masks have gate sealing cost an extra clue token will disincentivize sealing (and make going to an easy final battle all the more likely). How about instead of making the penalty for evading a mask causing gates to be 1 clue more to seal (in my opinion, too Hasturish for a doom track of 11), make it for each clue token on Nyarlathotep, his attack requires that many more clue tokens to be lost. I.e. if you evaded 3 masks over the course of the game, failing a lore check against him would cost 4 clue tokens. You could make it for every two clue tokens on him sealing costs 1 extra clue (I'm a bit worried that it can overcomplicate the game otherwise and not give players enough breathing room to potentially get around a mask that's causing them trouble, at least temporarily).

Also, how will the Wailing Writher move? As a stalker?

---

I like most of your pre-final battle rules (although some of them I think are a bit unnecessary— they take up too much space for little game effect and will clutter up the herald when it's ready to be made), but I still think the card won't function properly (it will have an anti-climactic ending) if you don't buff up Nyarlathotep somehow.

An idea about final battle... we should have some masks on the board and some of them on the AO sheet, right? Let's say we have X masks on the sheet and Y masks on the board. How about modifying Nyarly's attack in this way: Each investigator must pass a Lore (-X) check or lose a number of clue tokens equals to (1+Y).

Re: the Wailing Writher(the yellow-bordered mask): when drawn during a regular monster surge, it will stay put on the surging gate The rule only applies to masks that move.

Thus the Wailing Writher may only surprise an investigator when drawn in an encounter or as a result of a no-gate monster surge(since it just appears seemingly out of nowhere in the latter case).

When creating this herald I had in mind the modifications I've made to tweak the weakest GOOs: Nyarlathotep, Yig, Ithaqua and Hastur . Namely, that for each sealed gate you're short of, the AO's combat rating increases by (-1)

Or in other words, the AO's combat rating increases by (6-N) where N is the number of elder sign tokens on the board when the Ancient One awakens. Additionally, (6-N) doom tokens are added as extras to the AO's doom track at the start of final battle.

As for the primary penalty for evading masks, you can play around with it and see what you like best.

You may also add that if The Shadowy Figure(the elusive mask) is drawn during an encounter or appears in an investigator's location due to a no-gate monster surge, that investigator immediately discards all of his Clue tokens.If however an investigator moves into a location containing the Shadowy Figure, he doesn't lose his clue tokens.

And the(hopefully) last addition: when investigators encounter Shugeron just before final battle begins(i.e. when he's on Nyarlathotep's sheet), add an extra doom token to the doom track for each failed Combat check they make.

Heh, sorry for the mess.Maybe I will post this somewhere else in a more organized way.

Okay. With the 6-N rule it should work. I still think it would be possible to clean all this up so it can fit on a herald (although one or two minor effects might have to be sacrificed). Before I spend an hour or so trying to edit it, I should probably know if you want me to though ;') and possibly should also wait until it's definitely "complete."

I like the shadowy figure steals your clues effect :')

Yea, I think it should be complete. No need to make it fiddlier than it is, ha. Then again, this herald revolves around recurring game mechanics, so it's not all that fiddly. Maybe some playtesting is required first though.

Road tested your variant tjhis weekend avi, with a full monster cup. An excellent game! Dealing with monsters was more of an element of strategy on the table (usually, I sneak past). Anything that adds a new strategic element is welcome in my game. Agonising choices against miniscule odds are the life ichor of this game. So choosing whether to face Bloated Woman sat all game on an sealed Isle and soak up the curse with my bless spell,or just suffer from her sapping everyones Will and sanity, was a fun choice to figure. Shugoron also showed up at Gardners, and made monster movement far more unpredictable.

Weird "coincidences" this game: Bloated woman on unvisited isle all game, with aquatic hybrids on the streets, then it was windy, followed by raining cats and dogs with two Tcho tchos at once (shoulda guessed what was coming then), then heavy rain turned into Tempest and shugoron. All in direct sequence!

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you liked it.(:

Now I just have to try it out for myself.

Oh, you meant Avi's variant. I missed who you were referring to in that post since you printed the name in lower-case.

dj2.0 said:

Sounds awesome :") I would have targeted the woman for assassination immediately though. -1 will for everyone's a pretty nasty effect, especially coupled with boosted sanity damage. ;') the freakish weather made an awesome mood herald for Shugeron. Very cool. Was Shugeron difficult to deal with? Or did you just stay out of the streets at that point?

Your game sounds like so much fun, I am envious. Are you going to give the variant another shot? ;') after all, you've only seen 20% of the individual mask effects.

oh you bet im going to give it another whirl! too good to move on atm. Shuguron was way off in Dunwich, and no one could reach him but the prof with a gate box, by the time that happened, last seal was placed left Harvey on a cliffhanger...it couldnt end well.

the will and san handicap was baaad, yes, even with Harvey, sanity was threadbare all round all game. i was sorely tempted to vanquish her but in the end scraped through (with most of the team on 1 san and 1 sta).

dj2.0 said:

Ahhh, Heh.... Harvey must have been especially useful in that case. Hmmm... So why *didn't* you end up killing Ms. Bloatey? In retrospect, do you regret not having done so?

Rules Change:

That reminds me, if a mask goes into a vortex, it counts as if two monsters went into a vortex.

And yes, I will eventually post all of this in an orderly presentation in the custom heralds thread (when I'm convinced it's done) so it doesn't go LITAS (I mean, essentially it's a herald that's too long to fit onto a herald card without a magnifying glass).

By the way, did you have The Bloated Woman do 3 sanity damage when she came into play? I only intended for her to do two for balance issues, although now I kind of think it would be cool if she instantly Asylumed low sanity characters.

I steered clear because the team was equipped with a knife. Getting a better weapon or spell to take her down just didnt happen. Harvey was useful against her, but not for long, as he was no longer horror immune to 1 damage monsters and just kept getting whittled down. When she hit the table I deducted 2 of each stat from each team member, and this happened in the beginning (turn 2) so they were able to soak it up (Harvey especially, but then he was down to 1 stamina and had to shamble over to St Marys).I dont regret dealing with her, but only just. As the team were almost wiped at the end, one little extra loss at that point would have sent all my plans down the toilet. Had that happened, regret would be written all over not dealing with her.

dj2.0 said:

That is a good reason. I'm surprised you didn't hunt for any stronger weapons (considering how many of the masks are tough to fight). You did pull off a win though (right?), so, credit for that :') All I can say is you're lucky not to have pulled the Wailing Writher ;'D

I still want to see this made into a herald and posted in the heralds thread :') Zealot?