When Jim passes his personal story, he gets the Sweet Harmony ability, which allows him to immediate claim as a trophy an undead monster when it appears in Arkham. How do you suppose this ability interacts with Clothing Drive? As you probably know, Clothing Drive is mythos environment that reads

"While this card is in play, investigators without Exhibit Items must evade or fight a Mummy in each street location they enter. These Mummies have the same stats as Zombies except with a toughness of 2, and cannot be taken as trophies."

If the mummies have the same stats as Zombies, it makes them undead. On the other hand, they cannot be taken as trophies. Still, Jim's ability might trump Clothing Drive, which would allow him to take potentially dozens of trophies. In that case, an investigator would enter a street location, which would cause a mummy to appear, which would immediately give Jim a trophy. Aside from being grossly unbalancing, that would go against one of my general principles, which is that environments should trump all other game effects.

Another possibility is that the moment a mummy appears, Jim removes the monster from the game, even if he doesn't get the trophy. In other words, Sweet Harmony effectively cancels out Clothing Drive. I'm inclined to look favorably on this interpretation, since Jim is one of the weaker investigators in the game and it gives him more power. Thoughts?

Those mummies don't appear as per how monsters appear, they just sorta are around. If it doesn't say "monster appears", Jimbo is out of luck even if he has passed his PS.

Agreed with Dam. They don't appear, but you must fight them. So Kate Winthrop, too, I'd argue has to fight them.

Hmm. When monsters are placed at a gate, it doesn't say "a monster appears!" But Jim and Kate's abilities nevertheless apply.

avec said:

Well, if you want a strict reading, it does. Under "C. No Elder Sign or Gate", after placing doom token and gate marker:

"3. A Monster Appears" (p. 9)

But the word "appears" is never used for monster surges.

avec said:

now you're just grasping for straws.

i'd say the intent of the card is not to actually place monsters on the street.

Especially since you don't get trophies, anyway...

Taurmindo said:

No, I don't think I am. If "appears" is necessary for Jim and Kate's abilities to work, then they don't work for monster surges. It's pretty straightforward. And if "appears" is not necessary for their abilities to work, then there is no reason why those abilities would not work for Clothing Drive.

Appears as how you place a monster from the cup onto the board. Surge uses the word emerge, but how you do it is the same thing, draw from the cup and place. CD mummies aren't placed on the board.

But your argument is based on the word "appears," not on whether the monster is represented with a monster chit.

If the absence of a chit means that the mummies aren't really monsters, then the spells Red Sign of Shudde M'ell, Plague of Locusts, and Bind Monster are all ineffective against the mummies. And probably other cards that I haven't thought of yet.

So if CD in effect, how many Mummies would you fight in the Graveyard if you draw this encounter?

"An old-fashioned horse-drawn hearse creaks past on the road, and you just know that something wicked is coming. All Undead monsters in Arkham, the Outskirts, and the Sky move to this location. You must immediately evade or fight them."

Infinite since you never can kill off the CD-Mummies, so their number never diminishes? Or are they not in Arkham?

To me, CD-Mummies are treated as monsters as they are given stats by CD, but they never appear/emerge/whatever, so Kate or Jim have no effect on them.

Dam said:

Technically, the mummies don't exist in every street location. They only exist in a street location that an investigator has entered. Since the Graveyard encounter occurs during the Encounters phase, no street location would be entered until after the encounter is resolved.

I'd allow investigators to ignore the mummy threat if Jim had succeeded at his personal story. Imho, Jim is one of the worst investigators and his special abilities come into play rarely enough. So it'll be a nice surprise for him to be actually useful in this situation.

For me, as they are given stats, the Mummies are monsters. Otherwise, like avec said, certain things could not affect them which you can affect them with. However, for Jim's (and Kate's though not seeing how exactly she is relevant) PS, you need an actual monster chit to be drawn. He can always use his Dead Man Stomp to pass streets during Clothing Drive !!!

Dam,

I think that the relevance for Kate stems from her Special Ability in which "no Monsters or Gates appear..." Thus, they can't "appear" as she enters a street area. Just one interpretation, however, given this forum.

The Professor

Yeah, I'm also inclined to say that his ability doesn't apply, not because of the "appears" part, but (thematically perverse as this is) because I'm not convinced that they're necessarily "in" Arkham. If only for can-of-worms reasons, it seems a lot better to treat the mummies as being in the same sort of pocket universe as The Terrible Experiment.

The Professor said:

I think the point (at least from my POV) is that CD-Mummies are there, they never appear, so Kate moving from one street to another doesn't cause Mummies to appear on street X, then street Y as she moves. Mummies were there even before Kate moved to the street, she just didn't know they were there. Kate can never have a monster chit be drawn to her area, but her moving to a space with a monster doesn't cause it to go poof either, latter being as how I see what happens with CD-Mummies.

I think this is getting needlessly complicated. Right now we're saying that monster surges count as "appears" even though "appears" is never used to describe monster surges. However, we're also saying that Clothing Drive doesn't count as "appears" because chits for the mummies are not placed.

I don't really see what difference placing the chit makes. We place chits for the Terrible Experiment, but those monsters don't appear in Arkham. Furthermore, some of the flavor text of encounter cards imply heavily that a monster that "appears" had always been at that location. I know some people think flavor text shouldn't affect the rules. But we are making some assumptions based on the flavor text anyway if we assume that the mummies in the streets had always been there.

Also, technically it doesn't say that the mummies don't have chits. It could be argued that you are supposed to place a Zombie chit each time an investigator enters a street location. Once the combat is resolved, the chit is removed and used again for the next street location. It's just that the placement of the chit is skipped because it doesn't make any difference to the game whether you place it or not. But if placing the chit *does* make a difference for certain game effects, as Dam and others argue, then maybe we should place Zombie chits for Clothing Drive.

Personally, to me it's pretty simple. There's clearly a monster at the street location. And it clearly hadn't been there before (at least before the environment went into play). I think it's understood that the monster appeared there. Therefore, the mummies would be subject to abilities that are triggered when a monster appears, such as Kate's and maybe Jim's.

Avec, you're right (from a certain point-of-view). If I played with Clothing Drive, I would do the same thing. (Frankly, I hate the stupid card, and I'm glad it's gone.) But arguing with Dam about handicapping his favorite "ruination" card is foolish, especially when you're doing it in order to give (the much-hated) JIM a break. Unless someone is going to come forward with a FAQ judgment, this is another play-however-you-like-it situation. Agree to disagree, and let it rest.

Avec, since you seem to prefer the literal approach, guess Jim in your games doesn't get to claim Undeads with his passed PS if they "emerge" via monster surges, they don't appear.

And I don't see much complications in: chit drawn = appears, no chit = not appear. Are there even other cards that give out stats for monsters without having a chit being placed? TTE has you place the monsters on the card and not on the board, so no "in Arkham" for those. Can't block TTE by having Kate at Miskatonic U Streets .

if the monster limit is at its limit and i walk out on the street during the clothing drive, does the mummy appear anyways? if it does, it's not "a real monster" and thus Jim's ability wont work imo.

Think of the monster as a spawn monster. It can't be collected as a trophy and it doesn't count against the limit.

These mummy have sprung forth as a result of a curse. They don't behave as normal monsters: they're just meant to operate like obstacles to investigators who don't have Exhibit items.

on a related matter, can kate stop spawn monsters (like dunwich, or standing on surging gate with abhoth etc), or are they too powerful to be stopped by a mere human scientist?

Dam said:

I can think of 2 off-hand that are sorta like that. Both encounter cards. One has you pitted against bank robbers, and another against a vampire. Both are encounter cards, and both are Combat checks to pass. I still have Kate do them, and Jim also doesn't "Auto-beat" the Vampire for someone else if he passed his PS. But that's just me!

Also, Taur, she technically does stop Children of Abhoth, because she stops the surging gate from surging if she's standing over it. I'd rule that this doesn't work for the Dunwich Horror (talk about cheap!), and probably not for Children of Glaaki (since they're placed, don't appear, and it mentions even if an Elder sign is there it's placed. Not the same, but close...). Kate DOES prevent the Tentacle of Nyogtha from appearing, though. Not sure if any others are relevant...