What happens at midnight?

By Bleached Lizard, in Elder Sign: Omens

Apart from the adventure midnight effects, what else happens at midnight? It seems Doom is *sometimes* added to the GOO's doom track, but is this random? I've seen it say something like "Azathoth's midnight effect", but it doesn't explain what this is and I can't find any way to see it. Can anyone explain how this part of the game works?

Hi,

Same question. What happens during the Midnight? How can I avoid getting +3 doom track and so on? As I noticed, Ithaqua adds doom token for every investigator with 1 stamina. But where can I read about all the abilities of the Ancient Ones?

Ithaqua adds doom token for every investigator with 1 stamina.

It was just nothing more than just rumor. Palyed ~ 15 games more and sometimes did not get the doom token for investiagtor with 1 stamina.

Edited by PUX

The only way to avoid the random midnight 'mythos' effect is by using Jaqueline Fine's 'precognition' ability. Otherwise, the mythos effect always takes place, and there is no way to prevent it. It can vary between AO's- only Azathoth has the 'add 3 doom' effect, for example (the most any of the other AO's mythos effects will add (besides Hastur, if you have really bad luck) is 2 doom). Only Hastur adds doom for characters with 1 sanity or the number of yellow locks in play, only Tsathoggua brings multiple formless spawns into play at midnight, only the Pharaoh locks items, spells, or clues each turn after the first stage of the campaign, etc. I'm sure there are some unique midnight effects for most of the others, too.

Some midnight effects are triggered by certain adventures (and, on rare occasions, certain monsters from the campaigns) in play. Sometimes these adventures are unique to each AO, too (although not all). These adventures/monsters have the moon symbol on them. You can always see what the midnight effect will be by looking at the adventure or clicking on the monster icon in the adventure. These are preventable- you only need to resolve the adventure/kill the monster before midnight comes around. Of course, occasionally an adventure with a midnight effect will come out just before midnight hits (when the clock is at 9:00 and you resolve an adventure on that turn). In those cases, there is no way to prevent the effect from taking place, and there won't be any way to anticipate or prepare for it. I've read that some folks avoid attempting adventures at 9:00 for this reason, but I don't find that it happens often enough to do that. It can feel like the game screwed you in those instances, but that's part of playing a Lovecraft mythos game- you have to expect bad stuff to nail you sometimes.

To my knowledge, there is no central database which lists all the possible midnight effects you can get with each AO. To me, that is part of the fun of discovering the game. One of my favorites, from a design standpoint, is the Hastur midnight mythos effect that causes you to lose 1 sanity and turn into a lunatic monster if you have no sanity left. I was both horrified and overjoyed the first time that happened- nasty, but entirely in line with the game, thematically. Once you've played the game enough, you'll come to know all the possibilities each AO can trigger at midnight, and figure out ways to anticipate them and hopefully avoid getting killed (hint for Hastur- avoid getting reduced to 1 sanity as much as possible!).

Here's a list of random mythos midnight effect possibilities that I believe are common across all of the AO's:

No effect

1 monster

1 doom

1 doom + 1 monster

2 doom