Seekers of Knowledge has a new neutral Ancient One called Er'nrawr - Death and Entropy Manifest .

Now, I know my Cthulhu stuff but I've never heard of this one and I can't find any reference to it being in an obscure story or in a Chaosium roleplay sourcebook. So, my question is are FFG making up their own AO's now?

The_Big_Show said:

It's referenced on Eryn Cochwyn, Curious and Precocious, and I think it is made-up, as they make up most of the characters for their stories; and since they have the license and writers on-hand to make stuff up, I guess it's easier than drawing from existing canon. You would think though that if they were making names up, they would be slightly more pronounceable than some of the others in the actual canon, which seem to have been created by the writer banging his head on the typewriter (Cxaxukluth? Hziulquoigmnzhah?? Sfatlicllp??? )

A quick google search reveals nothing other than a couple of facebook posts by Damon and a dancing friend. Perhaps it's an inside joke? However it is a bastardized form of Hungarian, which roughly translates as "Dust and ash. All belongs to Er'nrawr."

Thanks for that. I think it's a little naughty of them though could be a lesser other god I suppose.

AGoT DC Meta said:

This is a joke, btw. Er'nrawr is much more pronounceable. Please FFG, don't print a card named SFATLICLLP. (Or is it SFATLIC, LLC - fine purveyor of doom since EVAR?)

I don't have a particular problem with this - of all the mythoses (mythi?) out there, Lovecraft's has been embellished and extended more than just about any other. I'm not sure how many players of the various Cthulhu-themed games realize how much of the lore actually comes from August Derleth and later psuedo-Lovecrafts than from Lovecraft himself. And Lovecraft himself is known to have lifted and extended content from earlier writers, e.g., The King in Yellow being lifted from Robert W. Chambers.

Here is a relevant quote, from S. T. Joshi (a prominent Lovecraft biographer; from Wikipedia):

"Lovecraft's imaginary cosmogony was never a static system but rather a sort of aesthetic construct that remained ever adaptable to its creator's developing personality and altering interests… [T]here was never a rigid system that might be posthumously appropriated… [T]he essence of the mythos lies not in a pantheon of imaginary deities nor in a cobwebby collection of forgotten tomes, but rather in a certain convincing cosmic attitude."

Runix said:

Nor do I. My commentary was merely expressing a desire that their artistic license simply be done tastefully, which they have so far.

I'm not complaining as such, but one of the attractions for me is that the game uses what we have established in the various mythos stories and the RPG. But we never know, this paticular AO could be the main threat behind the next set of APs and if so thats cool.

The_Big_Show said:

There won't be any more packs, only deluxe boxes.

AGoT DC Meta said:

Thats the first I've heard of that. Where has FFG said this? I've looked through the CoC news articles and can't find any reference to them dropping Asylum Packs.

That would be here, back in July, you may just not have gone back far enough?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3406

"Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Seekers of Knowledge, a deluxe expansion with a strong focus on Miskatonic University and the first release in a new distribution model for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game.

A New Direction

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game has gone through many evolutions since its initial release as a collectible card game in 2004 and its transition to the versatile Living Card Game™ (LCG) format in 2008. Along the way, we released two deluxe expansions, Secrets of Arkham and The Order of the Silver Twilight, the second of which focused heavily upon the introduction of the game’s eighth faction, the Order of the Silver Twilight.

Seekers of Knowledge will be more than another deluxe expansion; it will be the first in a new release model for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. The game will shift away from monthly Asylum Packs to the release of a deluxe expansion (each with 165 cards) once every four months.

We believe this is the best way forward with this particular line as it makes the game more accessible to new players helping it grow, as well as still delivering a deep and immersive experience for veteran players. However, there are no plans to apply this change to any other LCG.

Some of the these upcoming deluxe expansions will focus on a particular faction, while others will focus on themes from the mythos. Creatively, both offer exciting avenues for us to explore, and we are confident you will agree when you see the results."

Ah, ok. I didn't go back to July I don't think.

On one hand I like the idea but on the other it's a little dissapointing, though my wallet likes the idea.

There was a big thread about it back in July, in general most people decided it was a good thing.

The main effects from a mechanical point of view are:

1. 55 new cards/4 months is 13.75 cards per month, lower than the roughly 16.67 cards per month (they usually skip about 2 months each year for Asylum packs)
2. A better cost per card than today, which combined with the slightly slower rate add up to a much lower cost to collect

From a community point of view, it may tend to cause lulls in forum activity between packs

Finally, from a design perspective, it allows FFG to design whole sets of cards together and introduce major new themes in a way that they could never do with Asylum Packs. I think this is really the biggest advantage of the new system.

In my area one of the biggest problems is lack of players. And when sb likes the game and asks how to get started its easy to see why: usual answer of 2xCore + Secrets + probably a few APs is quite discouraging - investing 100$ for a game you're not even sure you'll get into is not that little. And then you need a ton of APs to make a strong deck, evan if you want to focus on one fraction only. And you need a lot of experience to choose those APs even knowing the spoiler list… After a few packs like MU one show up it will be just: One core + a set for fraction you like, and then buy what APs you need for your deck ideas - much better start.

The downside is how long your fraction will have to wait for new cards.

The good thing with the new deluxe expansion is that you can build relatively strong decks based off just it and 1 core… assuming you want a MU deck. I think it's a great way to lower entry cost into a fun LCG.

Right, as the remainder of the faction boxes come out it'll be a big advantage for new players to have a strong deck with just one Core and a faction box. Then they can expand to more new factions by adding their boxes and eventually start picking up some more general sets of cards like Secrets of Arkham if they want to.

Is this going to be a standard for all LCGs or just CoC?

So far just Call of Cthulhu. But it's possible that if the new format sells well it might eventually be used for other games.

AUCodeMonkey said:

I also think it's a nice idea they included two decklists that you can build using just a single core set and Seekers. I definitely plan to playtest both to see how they fare against my current deck.

jhaelen said:

One of the great things about Call of Cthulhu is that you can play any faction or mix of factions you want anytime, so why not try a Miskatonic deck sometime? It doesn't commit you to anything after all, you can go back to playing Shub or Agency or Yog or whatever for the next game. Personally, I switch up factions all the time.

The 2-decklists thing is a great idea, and they did this with the Game of Thrones boxes too. If I had one nitpick, the two Miskatonic decks are maybe a little more similar than I'd like (a lot of cards in common), but I think with the Explorers working as they do you want to either include all or none of them which doesn't help with deck diversity as I suspect not enough characters are left to make "none of them" a viable choice. Then once you've got a whole Explorer module in there it just makes sense to take some other Explorer-related cards, and so on…

I was really surprised in the storyline that Amaranth turns out to be Eryn Cochwyn - that's an interesting twist. But, you can have them both in play at the same time due to different names, so I wonder if she is "the" Amaranth or if there is (or has been) more than one. Maybe when one dies another person is recruited to take over the role?

Also, it makes her another example of a character changing factions like Carl Stanford. Will more people be shuffled around? Fluff-wise, Miskatonic might be particularly vulnerable to this as a student researches too deeply and becomes ensnared by some Ancient One…

Another conspiracy theory: Er'nrawr is actually Eryn (Er'n) Cochwyn taken control of by some primordial reptilian ancient one (RAWR!!!!)

Damon thought of it after saying "Rawr" one time in google+ to his singular circle-friend Erin.