The Serpent Crown of the Dark Pharoah enables its wearer to summon and control another person, though for only a short time; being subject to the Crown's power always induces a fatal cerebral hemmorage within a day.
Who would willingly use an artifact of such pure evil? The selfish, the immoral, the conscienceless . . . and perhaps the heroes? Many of those called in Arkham would bring tribute to their new lord: wealth, unique items, even a Blessing! When all the Earth is threatened by the rise of the Ancient One, are not the heroes justified in resorting to any means necessary to thwart the threat? Is not a handful of lives a worthwhile price to pay for saving everyone else on the planet? Surely it is permissible to do evil in the service of the greater good?
The dark temptation posed by the Crown to the well-meaning amuses the item's true master, but it was not the reason he had the Crown forged.
Against the rampage of Atlach-Nacha and the insatiable hunger of Chaugnar Faugn the Serpent Crown provides a mighty defense! Its use could well prove the only possible way to survive long enough to defeat those monstrosties, should they awaken.
Nyarlathotep has his own plans for humanity, but to help mortals beat back Atlach-Nacha and Chaugnar Faugn was not why the Crown was created.
Glaaki, in his terrible wisdom and cruel humor, has in the past ensured that the Serpent Crown found its way into the hands of those who sought to oppose him. Those enslaved by the Crown would serve its wearer only a short time, but their service to him would be eternal.
To increase the power of the spiny slug was certainly not the goal intended to be achieved through the Crown!
No, the Serpent Crown was made for one purpose and one purpose only: to enable a single individual to complete the ritual now known as Joining the Winning Team.
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Just wanted to share in a thematic way what I hope to one day achieve
. Since the moment I saw this Mission when I bought Dunwich I've wanted to complete it, but even with only basic Arkham and Dunwich it's extraordinarily difficult to accomplish. Add in all the other big box expansions and I'd pretty much given up all hope.
Then after I got Miskatonic I finally realized that the Serpent Crown Exhibit Item provided the perfect way to accomplish Joining the Winning Team. Of course getting ahold of both JtWT and the Serpent Crown at the same time might seem a pretty impossible task, and I sympathize with that point of view. Still, there are only twenty-seven Exhibit Items in the deck, and the Ancient Whispers marker provides you with an easy and accessible way to gain Exhibit Items. The Unique Item deck is much bigger, but there are a number of Encounter cards at the Curiousity Shoppe that will get you the Unique Item of your choice. And of course the next time I'm actually lucky enough to start with JtWT you can bet I'll be spending a lot of time seeking out Exhibit Items.
In spite of my hope I'll probably never fulfill the Mission (and the my gaming group would throttle me if I did), but at least now I can see a way it is realistically possible. For those who would like to see someone actually complete Joining the Winning Team, make sure you use the CotDP and Miskatonic Horror CotDP cards in your game!
P.S. Glaaki is very much my group's arch-nemesis, the Mythos deck seeming to have been constructed with Thrawn-like strategic genius almost any time we're up against him. The above mention is a reference to one game in which he was the Ancient One and one of the Investigators drew the Egyptologist Skill, only for his Exhibit Item to be the Serpent Crown! Of course every use of the Crown would have brought out another Servant of Glaaki, so the Investigator was stuck with a worse than useless Exhibit Item. That was actually quite an unusual turn of events for us; most often in Glaaki games we start off with territic weapons and sometimes even an Elder Sign, or in one game two! Glaaki then proceeds to curbstomp us anyway
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