Well based on how it plays you don't even need a sleeve to insert a copy.

A free seal with no need to go into the gate is a HUGE deal, and the price doesn't even require spending anything; you just need to have a Blessing and...something. For it to be balanced, I'd say it would have to be Allies, since Clues are too easy to come by (unless, of course, the card requires a ridiculous amount of them). Thoughts? If you were tasked with filling the blank so that the card was balanced, what would you do?

And incidentally: can anyone who has them provide a review of the novels (or one of them, if you just have one)? Some people have made offhand remarks, but I'd like to get a better sense of them, particularly in terms of how they compare to Lovecraft's stories.

Yeah, my guess would be an Ally. A pretty easy deal if someone who starts with an Ally like Leo is in the game. But definitely not a gimmee, otherwise.

I dunno, even if you manage to draw ten headlines in a row, it still gives you an awfully long time in which to get enough trophies to buy an ally and have another investigator bless you.

Another possibility (one that is potentially too hard, rather than too easy, and I don't know whether it contradicts the book) is that instead of "an investigator," it says " each investigator."

You could be right. It might be "each." In which case, whatever the other thing is shouldn't be too much. Maybe 2-3 Clues or something like that. I think in most cases, one investigator being Blessed and having an Ally might be a reasonable challenge, but it could be too easy for someone like Leo who starts with an Ally, or if you happen to get lucky to gain an Ally during an encounter early in the game. And to get one seal like that is huge, so I think it might indeed be "each investigator." Anyway, I'm sure someone will clarify eventually.

I certainly hope it's not "each." That would make the rumor scale up in difficulty with more investigators.

Having a single investigator be blessed and have two allies would seem fair, maybe.