Hello, I've just finished work on a mini expansion called 'Lost In The Woods'. The set focuses on expanding the Woods of Arkham and generally just making things tougher by adding an additional balancing act to the equation.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/fea2fo

I'm not going to post each individual item here, for obvious reasons, but it includes:

1 Map
20 Monsters (5 Child of Neriath, 5 Dark Priestess, 3 Dryad, 2 Dryad Warqueen, 2 Feral One, 2 Malignant Creation, 1 Kaoloth)
5 Mythos cards
3 Otherworld Encounter cards
20 Location cards (10 each for the South Woods and North Woods neighborhoods)
30 Woods Events
4 Investigators
3 GOOs
1 Herald
1 Benefit (Well, 8 if you include copies)

I literally just finished within the past hour and haven't had time to print and playtest, so consider this a test batch. Let me know what you think!

Woops, I forgot to mention that it also includes a card with the extra rules, cleverly entitled "Lost In The Woods Rules".

Congratulations, looks like some interesting stuff.

For anyone who wants to have a look, it will be useful to know that the file "TheWoods.eon" is the map, and a deck of the expansion cards can be found as "DeckOWoodsNess.eon".

I've only given this a cursory glance, but here are a few high-level observations:

1. Image tags that refer to local files.

There are several cards that have an <image> tag that uses "C:UsersMoiPicturesLostInTheWoodsReal.png" as the image. None of us will have that image saved there, so we will end up with big red X's on the card backs.

The best way to fix this at the moment would be to put your image in an extension, then use a res:// URL instead of the file path to point to the image. This is very easy if all you want to do is add more image resources. Here's a quick rundown:

Make a temporary folder with the following files and folders:

eons-plugin
resources/
themessage/
woods-resources.js
LostInTheWoodsReal.png

The eons-plugin file is a plain text file (with no .txt extension) containing the following line:

script:resources/themessage/woods-resources.js

The woods-resources.js file is a plain text file containing the following lines:

uselibrary( "extension" );

function getName() {
return "Lost in the Woods Resources";
}

That's it. The extension script (above) doesn't really need to do anything, because the only point of the extension is to make the contents of the resources/themessage folder available to everyone that installs the extension. ZIP these up and name the resulting file LostInTheWoods.seext. Install the expansion and then you can access the needed image as "res://themessage/LostInTheWoodsReal.png" instead of "C:UsersMoiPicturesLostInTheWoodsReal.png".

If you want to go that extra mile, you can use your extension to add "Lost in the Woods" as a selectable expansion, complete with its own expansion symbol. Then you can add an appropriate expansion symbol to all of your cards. There is a tutorial that explains how to do this .

2. Pairing up cards in decks.

In your deck, it looks like you paired up the fronts and backs of your cards manually. (Maybe not, it is remotely possible that there is some rounding error causing the problem.) Perhaps this was intentional for some reason, but you don't need to do so much work. When you drag one card over another, it will snap it into place next to the existing card. (A blue translucent box indicates where the card will snap to when dropped.) When snapped this way, the edges are aligned exactly so that they are just touching, with no overlap and no space between them. If you snap the front of a card beside the back of the same card, it will add a dotted fold line (instead of a solid cut line) to indicate this. This also works if you snap the matching card face above or below the back, but in this case you need to rotate one of the cards twice so that it looks correct when folded (you will only get fold lines if the rotation is correct).

3. General tips for creating maps.

There are not specific to your map, just a few useful nuggets.

I don't know if you tried it or not, but for anyone who is working on a map, the Location Connector plug-in is actually quite useful and it can connect up most maps automatically, saving quite a bit of time. The only caveat is that the current version (3) was written before the introduction of decorations, so if you want to use it, it is best to lay out your locations over plain background tiles, link them up with the connector, then add decorations. I expect I'll get around to fixing this at some point.

Perhaps it is just my personal preference, but I find the monster movement arrows tend to look best when they are parallel to the line they sit on. You can get very fine control over the angle by dragging the line further away from the arrow when rotating. First center the middle of the arrow over the line, then drag the rotation handle far away, then adjust the angle until it looks like an extension of the movement line. You might need to adjust the position of the arrow a bit to re-center it visually after getting the right angle.

Cheers,
Chris

Forgive me if I'm just being silly, but where is the compiled map file? The two files that seem like they could be it (TheWoods.eon and Lost in the Woods.eon) both give me an error (this does not appear to be a Strange Eons file). Additionally, TheWoods.eon gives another error (Unable to Open Unable to Read Card File Required by this Deck) (thank you Thelric for descriptive error messages!). Is one of these the map? If so, how do I modify the file so I can open it, since SE doesn't like it right now? Thanks.

It could be that your download was corrupted. Or it could be that the expansion files were saved from a newer version of SE than the one you are using. It might also be a bug in SE, but that seems unlikely since I had no problem opening the files. If your copy of SE is up to date, try downloading the archive again.

Cheers,
Chris

Somehow or another, I missed updating from Beta 7 to RC3. After doing so, everything works now. Very interesting, but I'm kinda confused - how does one get from Arkham to the Woods map? Is it only via events? Or is there a concious method that I just missed?

Echoing Thelric's comments, it looks good, but the layout could use some work. Looking at the board, would it not make more sense to have the streets connected in a circle, black clockwise, white counterclockwise (or vice versa), rather than having the monsters bounce back and forth oddly? If nothing else, it would more closely resemble the main Arkham board.

Thanks Thelric, and thank you for something interesting, The Message.

Moments later, I go back to looking at the new stuff, and look at the new GOO's. I notice a minor problem with Chernobog. In AH, difficulty (with regards to skill checks) means successes. Did you really mean that you need one more success every turn (on a rapidly diminishing dice pool)? Or did you mean that the modifier decreases every turn? If the first, the investigators pretty much have to kill him in two turns or so, or it will be essentially impossible.

Yay, downloads.

First, Thelric, thanks for the advice. I'll get around to doing that soon (With the images), but I've got a busy week ahead and need to fix a ton of typos I missed anyways, so it'll be a bit.

Hadanelith, Lost In The Woods Rule Sheet.eon is a card with the main rules of the expansion for easy reference while playing. Here's the text:

<b>Any Phase:</b> If an investigator is delayed while at the Woods (Location in Arkham), they are Lost In The Woods (Special Location on The Woods map). (Investigators may also choose to be Lost In The Woods instead of having an encounter at the Woods)

<b>Movement:</b> Any investigator who is Lost In The Woods can move to any street location on The Woods map.

<b>Mythos Phase:</b> If a Moon or Hexagon symbol is shown on a mythos card, or if a gate is shown at the Woods, draw and resolve a Woods Event card after the special text of the mythos card.

The <b>Initial</b> effect is immediately resolved. The <b>Continuous</b> effect resolves every time the trigger occurs. The <b>Cost</b> can be payed during <b>Upkeep</b> by any investigator that is Lost In The Woods to return the Woods Event to the deck.

The Woods map has no monster limit, but gates there do count towards the number of open gates.

Essentially, you can choose to go there, you can be delayed and forced to go there or you can be hit with an effect that sends you there. In all cases, you're Lost In The Woods until the next movement phase, where you can move to any 'street' on that map. Getting back requires encounters from the various locations (Which dump you at the uptown streets) so it can take a bit of time and luck.

The main reason for even bothering with the Woods is to control (and remove) the Woods Events that pop up. Even a cursory look through the deck will show that they can create some very big issues if left alone.

I printed out a copy of the set and I'm about to sit down for a game (Or two), so I'll let you know how it goes. Any playtesting would be extremely appreciated for the 'final' release.

Ok, just finished my first game with the expansion and it was a swift, brutal defeat.

GOO was Neriath, who actually had no impact on the game since no Cultists were ever drawn. Kaoloth was the Herald, and seemed to be extremely busy due to a lot of environments popping up (4 in all). He actually appeared first turn, since a gate to the woods opened (Fittingly enough...) and was extremely easy to defeat. However, his constant Event triggering was really difficult to manage.

I used all 4 investigators and had some decent pulls (Mother Grey had an elder sign), but nothing too spectacular. Cerelia spent a lot of time jumping between otherworlds, and when she finally came out and closed a gate to Leng, another one shot her right back. Montague was really useful since clues were scarce for some reason and we really needed to kill some Continuous events (More on those later...). Gerald was a decent enough monster hunter.

A lot of custom monsters made it out (Probably because they were poorly mixed on top), including two Malign Creations which had a penchant for firing off monster surges with their movement. A few Children of Neriath popped up but were easy to avoid altogether. Nothing big came around, other than a Star Spawn that was neglected.

The Woods Events... are fast. They just kept firing like crazy, mostly from Kaoloth. It got especially ridiculous once we had both Sacrifice and Ancient Rituals out, so each Doom token was basically adding 3. When I finally got Montague through to knock out one (gates kept opening on the woods, which made it hard to get Lost, obviously), Welcome Home came out and kept me in the same predicament.

Neriath woke up quickly, of course, and manage to tear us apart suprisingly fast, especially considering that I forgot about Kaoloth's curse effect.

All in all, it seems way too difficult but that's a rather quick judgement after a single play. The problem is that Woods Event cards were getting played at an alarming rate. I think I may adjust the movement symbol trigger to just Hexagon, since Hex and Moon seems to be too much. I didn't want the effects to be completely ignore-able, but I think it's too far in the other direction as of writing (I believe I had 7 or 8 come out, which is way too many for the 6 or so turns we actually had). Kaoloth also caused a good bit of damage with these, but that's his primary purpose. They should be prevalent with the herald, but only somewhat dangerous without. As is, removing Kaoloth does little for the difficulty.

So that's that. I'll hopefully get in another session before the day is done.

Sounds cool, can't wait. Can we see some images?

Hello MESSAGE -

Perhaps, an investigator that joins the cult can choose to go to the Woods or Lost in the Woods location. I don't know what events are going to occur in the Lost Woods, but if they are beneficial a cult member could take advantage of it, and if they are nasty they might be able to disarm the effect.

If you add in the custom rule that all hexagon monsters are elusive to a cult member, a cult member might have plenty of reasons to explore the darker corners of the woods.

lemmingsunday said:

There is one Woods Event that let's you join the cult, but other than that I'm trying to stay away from too much black goat material because sadly I do not yet have it. Perhaps I'll give Cult members a discount to remove Events, which is both thematic and helpful.

methinks your link is incomplete

A 'Mini-Expansion'!

From the brief glimpse I've taken of the .eon files Lost In The Woods looks fantastic.

TatteredKing said:

The link works, I just tried it. Did you copy and paste or type it manually?

Thank you , i like it

looks interesting so far, but what is a DOOM check?

oh, and not all of the pictures are working yet btw

Cabello said:

A Doom check is a check made using the Doom track's current value (For example, Nyarlathotep is at 6 tokens, so your check would be 6 dice plus any modifiers). Terror checks are made the same way but using the current terror level.

Ok, second play just finished, this time against Chernobog. It was actually one of the better games I've played, in that neither side had a clear advantage at any point. We finally got our 6th seal while he was 4 from waking and Good Work Undone was about to fail.

This play was with the change to the Woods Event symbol trigger, which is that it only fires on Hexagon, not both Hexagon and Moon. This seems to have helped a ton, since we got more Woods Events but they were spread out over far more turns. It never felt like they were drowning us in effects, just that they provided a little more tension and pressure. Gerald and Mother Grey actually had to willing get Lost In The Woods in order to take out a few particularly nasty cards, but were then stuck on The Woods map for 4-5 turns before finding encounters that sent them back.

Speaking of the map, it got significantly more use this game. Two gates actually opened there (I should change the location colors. They aren't unstable, but calling them stable is misleading...) and loads of monsters showed up, mostly from Woodland Whisperings. This made things more interesting for investigators who ended up over there, as they actually had some challenges to face. However, what this really lead me to realize is that my map is totally absurd. Seriously, I must have had Azathoth telling me what to do or something, because none of the monster movement arrows make sense. I'm going to go fix that right after this and It'll be up today, but until then... woops.

That's about it, really. Chernobog was actually really fun to play against, which is strange cause he looked too strong on paper. His main ability kicked in several times (Once it had a huge 4 mythos card streak due to monster surge chains) and was definantly threatening but somehow never came across as unbearable. His cultists popped up a few times and gave us some curses, which was actually refreshing since I don't get those often these days. He didn't wake up of course, so I didn't get to see how hard his battle is, but I can certainly guess...

Oh, and Malign Creations are now officially my most aggravating monster. One sat in the Sheldon Gang Outpost and manged to open 2 gates and cause at least 3 monster surges during the game. Luckily they lose a lot of steam once you get a bunch of seals in place, but in the mid-game they can be rough.

Ok, latest version of the map: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pvsjan

It actually makes sense now, haha.

Hi Message, can't open the map in SE, says:

The card Lost in the Woods (front side) was not found.

Edit: my bad, help if I downloaded the rest of the files! heh

Sounds and looks great!

Just a thought: shouldn't the locations be unstable (i.e. with a red diamond instead of a green one)?

pvdlinde said:

Bah, I knew I was forgetting something when redesigning it. They shouldn't be unstable, as they don't start with clues and mythos cards don't open gates there, but they also shouldn't be stable... I think yellow diamonds would work to get the 'possibility of gate' idea across.

Sigh... I'll have it up later today, haha.

Do you really want the Malign Creation monsters to be indestructible, and two in the game?

lemmingsunday said:

Indestructable? I've killed several, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. In any case, I like having them in and it seems I always get at least one out per game now, which creates a little extra tension. If you would prefer, just take one (Or even both) out, nobody is going to force you to use them, they just make things a bit more challenging.

On another note, sorry for the lack of updates this week, I had to drive my fiancee' to Atlanta for a procedure and haven't had access to SE. I'll try to finish things up by sometime in the middle of next week.

Maybe, I miss read the monster stats, I thought it was both physically and magically immune. There are still ways to deal with them if that is the case, but it gets really hard.