The nightgaunt drops you off at the nearest gate. Does the nightgaunt stay at this location or return to its previous location where the combat took place?

It doesn't "come with you" to the gate space. It remains on the space that you engaged it upon.

Tibs,

That's an interesting interpretation...and one I hadn't heard before. Even at Arkham Nights, the games we played had the Nightgaunt travel with you to the gate and then they were returned to the cup. The point of discussion centered on whether you entered the Other World area delayed or not. Half the games we played, you entered delayed, and the other half, not delayed .

Nightgaunt's monster token instructs you to be drawn through nearest gate.

No monster movement, no delaying, no returning to the cup instructed.

Yeah, that is pretty strange. There is nothing to say that the monster comes with you, or leaves play. Since a gate is not opening on you, there's no reason to be delayed .

Was this something the designers were doing? Because they've either changed their minds on how Nightgaunts worked or never clarified that they worked that way in the first place.

Unfortunately, my name wasn't drawn from among the attendees to play a game with either of the designers (Launius or Wilson), but played several games moderated by staff members, quite familiar with the game.

Even the FFG staff follows rules inconsistently?! This game is in dire need of an FAQ.

I'm just curious Tibs, you said that if you are drawn through a gate you are not delayed. Doesn't the word drawn mean that the investigator is forcefully sucked to the OW, therefore leaving him or her disoriented and therefore delayed? After all, the investigator is not acting on his or her own free will to enter the gate when the Nightgaunt tosses him in.

I've always assumed that a gate opens unexpectedly, disorienting the investigator. But a Nightgaunt flies the investigator to the gate, so the investigator sees it coming and is prepared to enter.

It's possible that you were playing with a particular moderator who may have been playing Nightgaunts incorrectly all this time. I just recently discovered that in final combat the First Player token passes at the end of the Upkeep phase, rather than at the end of the round.

I, too, am flummoxed by "drawn." Consider, for example, the moving gate, which delays any investigator it moves onto. Well, alright, that might not be the best example, but "drawn" is still used for gates opening on you. I think.

You know, investigator entering gate location is also drawn through it at the arkham encounter phase.

According to the wording in the AH rulebook:

Gates Opening on Investigators

If a gate opens at a location that contains an investigator, he is immediately DRAWN through the gate to the first area of the corresponding Other World. As a result of the sudden disorientation caused by the gate swallowing him, the investigator is delayed.

The word 'drawn' does seem to imply being delayed when entering an Other World via Nightgaunt, who uses the same term on its chit.

But did you see what MyNeighbour posted above you?

On page 9, under "Gate" condition for the Arkham Encounters phase:

If the location has a gate, the investigator is drawn
through the gate. He moves to the first area (the left
area) of the Other World indicated on the gate marker.

So this word is used for non-delay cases. It's apparent that "drawn" isn't enough to indicate delay, so we must instead refer to the specific case of a gate opening:

If a gate opens at a location that contains an investigator,
he is immediately drawn through the gate to the first
area of the corresponding Other World. As a result of the
sudden disorientation caused by the gate swallowing
him , the investigator is delayed.

Well it's obvious that this disorientation does not occur when the investigator goes to the gate to enter it, only when it opens on them and surprises them. Hitching a ride from a nightgaunt may be a surprise in and of itself, but the gate is not opening on you and swallowing you; and, as I've said before, you're conscious during the entire Nightgaunt ride, so you're aware that you're being taken through a gate. There's no reason you'd be disoriented and thus you should not be delayed .

One mystery solved ( delayed or not delayed ) and one to go...where does the Nightgaunt go?

Since the Nightgaunt doesn't say that you move, I'd assume that it "returns" to its original spot, which when condensed to simplified mechanics, implies that it just doesn't move at all. I mean the thing's only purpose is to capture wandering investigators and cart them off to the underworld. In the story they didn't stick around with Randolph Carter, they just left him. Until later, of course, when he was captured again but he uttered the password that put them under his control. Then they were used as flying mounts for the battle against the moon beasts.

Tibs: An aside related to your most recent post. I'm currently reading "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (I'm actually right at the moon-beast battle you mentioned, please don't speak about anything afterwards) and I was wondering something: the story refers to creatures called bholes, which are quite clearly Arkham's Dholes (or rather Dhole). Does my version of the story just have a misspelling? Are the two creatures separate? Or did a later writer (or story) change it to "dholes" for some reason?

Well, the leadup to the moon-beast battle was just the coolest thing ever so I honestly can't remember much past that anyway (wait, yes I can: the story gets more awesome). Little wonder this is my favorite story.

To answer your question though, until you asked just now, I had no idea! I thought that they were two similar, yet distinct, species, perhaps distinguished only by location. But according to Wikipedia, they're the same thing.

I don't think it's a blatant misspelling like in "Massa" di Requiem, or "De Vermiis." But "bhole" would have lent itself to more immature jokes, I can tell you that.

But that reminds me...

ATTENTION ALL:

If any of you have the Barnes and Noble Lovecraft Complete Works, please refrain from reading the author's paragraph at the beginning of each story. The one at the beginning of "Azathoth" spoils the ending to Dream Quest . Luckily I had forgotten what the ending was before reading it, but, FOR SHAME. The editor should have spotted that, especially considering that "Azathoth" comes before Dream Quest in the book. Dream Quest is one of the best stories with one of the best endings, and the whole story revolves around Carter's quest for something, which means that the ending is a particularly poignant climax. Why spoil that just to make some unrelated remark about some other story? "Azathoth" wasn't even a story. It was a discarded beginning draft of an epic poem Lovecraft never followed through on.

That reminds me to dust off the covers of my Necronomicon.

Tibs: It's an interesting conundrum. The AH Wiki lists Dholes as first appearing in "Through the Gate of the Silver Key," which was written later on (and which I have not read). Of course, the Wiki is not terribly reliable about this sort of thing, but it causes me to suspect that Lovecraft inexplicably changed the name in the later story.

As to your other item: I don't have that collection, but I do agree that introductions to new editions of old works do tend to be quite inconsiderate about spoilers. Just because something is fairly old and/or "classic," it is assumed that the buyer has already read it. They could at least put them at the end.

This is completely unrelated, but since I've started ranting, I'll continue: people who write summaries are also to be faulted for this. I've seen several plot summaries spoil books, and some that are just wrong. The most egregious I can remember is one for the video game Kingdom Hearts II. Throughout the first section of the game, there's no clear villain presented, just a number of mysterious (and seemingly evil) creatures. The game also periodically cuts to a mysterious figure whose face is wrapped in red strips of cloth discussing his plans with someone else. One summary I found (for a company that rents out games) stated that the game involved the heroes "battling an evil mummified king." Clearly, this referred to the guy in red, who is, as it happens, is none of the above. The summary-writer clearly just played the first few hours of the game and gave up. He couldn't bother to look it up on Wikipiedia...?