Tonight my group had our first game with just Miskatonic Horror and the other big boxes, no CotDP or KiY. Ursula, Joe, Darell and Leo united to battle the rise of Yibb-Tstll.
Things were odd right from the start, with the first gate opening at Whately Farm, of all places. Usrula began at Joe Sargent's Bus Stop and grabbed a Clue from the Esoteric Order of Dagon. The encounter would have required her to draw an Innsmouth Look card, so she paid the clue token she'd just gained to cancel it. I jokingly chided the player for spending the clue token he had only just gained. He said he still had the one at Marsh Refinery and I asked him what if that encounter was equally bad? He asserted that Marsh Refinery was much safer than Innsmouth's center of religion.
Next turn Wizard's Hill opened, illustrating a focus on Dunwich which we usually only see from Glaaki. Ursula hit Marsh Refinery and drew an enounter card which required her to draw an Innsmouth Look card
. This time the player chanced it and survived, but prudently got the heck out of Innsmouth next turn. Meanwhile Leo, who'd begun the game with the Thomas Olney ally and Blessing, was lucky enough to pick up Ryan Dean at no cost at Hibb's Roadhouse. Dean gave Leo Research Materials, much to the Darell player's chagrin. Still, the passing of the Expedition Leader's difficult Personal Story beckoned!
A monster surge brought even more monsters to Dunwich and we still had no gates open on any other board. The Leng Spider from Whately Farm was down at the Village Commons street area now, and both Shan had taken to the sky. Darell took his shotgun up to the Village Commons and blasted the Leng Spider, while Ursula waited at Bishop's Brook Bridge. Unforunately both Shan subsequently descended on Darell. With Yibb's requirement that you get two successes to pass an Evade check, even 0 Awareness Shan are a huge threat and Darell was only able to survive by using his Unique Item Key to enter the Dreamlands. He didn't have enough clues to seal so it might have been better simply to die, but Darell's player doesn't think that way. Ursula was Delayed at BBB, and next turn got an encounter which would have thrown her out in the street with the the two Shan if she hadn't paid to cancel it! Leo, who had meant to jump in one of the Dunwich gates and had just lost his Blessing, had to content himself handling rifts in Kingsport.
Around that time the Strange Shapes in the Water Mythos card dumped eleven monsters across three of the boards, including the Servitor of the Outer Gods in Unvisited Isle, a Nightgaunt in Kingsport and Barnabas Marsh himself in the Factory District! Leo hit BBB, gave Ursual some cash, and then returned to Kingsport to use the Nightgaunt to reach the Whately Farm Unkown Kadath Triangle gate, cleverly bypassing both Shan. Meanwhile Ursula went after the one who was undoubtedly the mastermind of this acquatic invasion, Barnabas Marsh! It was a very difficult fight and in the end she had to spend all of her Clues to kill the patriarch of the Marsh family, but given Yibb's extremely short Doom track the player thought it was a worthwhile sacrifice.
Vengeance was of course immediate, with the Servitor swooping down on Ursula and the Hunting Horror seeking her out. Passage through the Innsmouth and Dunwich vortices brought the Terror Level up to three, causing Ursula to fail her Personal story and Cursing her! Clueless, Cursed and and without hope Ursula deliberately failed in her attempt to flee and was reduced to dust by the mighty Servitor of the Outer Gods. Lola, with her Makeup Kit, Flamethrower, and Mi-Go Braincase, entered the fight.
Leo emerged from his gate early and in response the Hunting Horror sought him out. At the cost of reducing himself to one sanity Leo slew the Horror and sealed the gate, disposing of the frustratingly immobile Shan and opening Dunwiich's store of Clues to the other investigators (Wizard's Hill kept surging, so Gardener's Place had FOUR clues, and Devil's Hopyard had two).
Joe Diamond had hopped in the Dreamlands gate and he and Darell had both come out on top of a Spectral Haunter, with the Dhole just outside. Joe was able to seal the gate, kill the Haunter and fortunately the Dhole soon moved away.
A gate to Another Time opened at Devil's Reef and we had now reached the point where we had more threats to deal with than we had manpower or time. Two tokens were on the Dunwich Horror with a near-impossible to catch Serpent Man waiting to provide the third. A rift was on the verge of opening in Kingsport and there was still a Proto-Shoggoth, Zombie and Deep One Hybrid guarding the Port of Royalty. A Rat-Thing was poised to go through a vortice there, bringing the Terror Track and Deep One Rising Track to three and incidentally failing Leo's story.
Leo grabbed the four Clues at Gardener's Place, which with his Research Materials would give him enough to seal. Lola got the two at Devil's Hopyard, giving her five, and Joe picked up the invaluable Silver Key at the Curiousity Shoppe, which he soon entrusted to Darell. Leo fought his way through the Gnoph-Ka to enter the Wizard's Hill Abyss gate and Lola switched places with a Warlock on the Devil Reef gate. Darell jumped into a Witch House gate, using the key to bypass a Star Spawn. The Rat-Thing passed through, a rift opened and the Dunwich Horror awoke. Joe ended up going to Innsmouth to blow away a Cultist after the Rat-thing entered the vortice and luckily managed to get two successes on his Evade check and avoid being arrested.
Leo was lost in Time and Space, Lola was delayed, but Darell made it through okay and sealed his gate. The Mythos card came up which allowed us to trade items and Joe got the Silver Key while Darell got the Mi-Go Braincase, which he used to switch places with a Maniac that had just emerged on Devil Reef, plunging him into Another Time. On the same turn Ursula emerged early. On the Mythos phase a monster surge brought a Tcho-Tcho onto Devil Reef, the Priest of Dagon and a Deep One Hybrid swam there and a Mi-Go and the Servitor of the Outer Gods descended from above. Finally the environment was Sunny and Clear, adding one to will checks but making sneak checks more impossible than ever. It was really a ludicrous amount of overkill, but Lola's player kept his head and cooly assessed the tactical situation. First he slew the Mi-Go with his bare hand and was rewarded with the Statue which prevents Sanity or Stamina loss. Next he killed the Deep One Hybrid by pounding its head against a rock. He turned his Flamethrower on the Tcho-Tcho, somehow miraculously failing to ignite the Dynamite it carried. Now things were down to the wire. Ursula threw herself at the Priest of Dagon, doing her best to strangle the fishy cleric. With two dice to get two successes she could hardly hope to win, yet on the second try she did! Now it was just Lola against Yibb's Servitor. Using the Statue to counter the Sanity loss Lola tossed the Dynamite into the maw of the creature which had Devoured Ursula and plagued us almost the whole game, blowing it back to Hell! To my utter amazement Lola had triumphed over all five monsters!
Lola's controlling player said he was going to be really upset if she failed her roll to seal now, but she passed it with no problem. On his second time through the Abyss gate Leo also sealed it. Joe had also accumulated enough Clues and had gone through a Graveyard Yuggoth gate. The first turn a Serpent Man ran from him. On the second turn the Servitor of the Outer Gods reappeared in Yuggoth to try to destroy our last hope! Fortunately Joe had the Silver Key, but things were righ on the edge. There were ten Doom tokens on the Doom track, the Dunwich Horror was awake and we had two Rifts opened. As so often happends, everything would depend on the last Mythos card. In the unlikely even it didn't add a Doom token or break a seal, Joe would almost certainly provide the sixth seal. We drew and . . .
Well, it was a grand try on our part, anyway. With Yibb's power which requires two successes on an Evade check the usually easy to avoid Servitor of the Outer Gods becomes truly formidable. This actually isn't the first time he's played a big role in a Yibb-Tstll game, but this is the first time his part has been quite THIS big, not to mention the reinforcement Shan. It was very close game and, win or lose, those are the ones I enjoy most.
. Or at least I thought we did; most frustratingly, it looks like I made an error on a rift opening, which would have reduced our chances of losing to fifty/fifty, depending on whether the Dunwich Horror would have added a Doom token.