The Sea of Horror Custom Expansion

By Guest, in Fan Creations

This is a small expansion I'm making. In consists of a board (that should be placed near River Docks), a Treasure Item deck, a special Mythos deck that is played alongside the normal Mythos deck, and a special cup of Sea monsters. There are also a couple of special cards a new type of token that makes streets in Arkham flooded. A couple of investigators and Ancient Ones will be added as well.

Here is the board: (Yellow location means that a gate can't appear in them, but monster can move those location and monster can also apear via encounters)

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Click the pic for a larger version, or follow this link: img13.imageshack.us/img13/4277/expansion1.jpg

Whenever a monster enters the Maelstrom, it is returned to the cup and a random street in Arkham is flooded. This is indicated by a Flood token. Here it is, front and back:

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When a street is flooded, the terror level increases by 1 and a Sea monster appears on the flooded street. It takes 1 extra movement point to get in or or out flooded streets. Btw, Sea monsters, either in Arkham or in the Sea of Terror, do not count towards to monster limit, although the only way for them to appear in Arkham is through flooded streets. Monsters that appear in the new board are always Sea monsters and gates are always gates to Lost City of Atlantis.

An investigator may dry a street by ending his movement there and discard 5 toughness worth of Sea monster trophies or a Lost City of Atlantis gate trophy. When an investigator do so, the flood token is discarded to the pile of unused flood tokens and the terror level decreases by 1.

Now how to get into the new board:

To get to the Boat Passage location, you need to either spend 1$ and 1 movement point, or only 1 movement point if you have the Boat Ownership card. You can also swim to there, but you need the Swimming card to do so. Here are the relevant cards:

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There are ofcours a more rules regarding the new board, but they'll be described later.

Btw, here's something you can catch on the open sea:

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Soon I will spoil some Treasure Item card, that introduce a new type of weapons: Rusty weapons. Rusty weapons are not physical nor magical, but as a drawback they have limited Stability; they each start with a different number of Stability tokens, and each turn you remove one token from them. When they're out of stablity, they rust out and are discarded.

Stay tuned.

Thoughts? Anyone??

Here's how to escpae the Prison at Sea: (obviously, there are a couple of encounters that give you a chance to espcae as well)

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Replies would be appreciated.

Pretty cool idea.

I might consider to take the lost of sanity away from the sea sickness card. I've been sick at sea, and it pummeled my stamina, but my brain came out of it just fine.

I don't like the ability to spend five clue tokens and remove a flooded location. It doesn't make a lot of sense. A part of the danger of your new expansion ought to be the threat of Arkham flooding (hurricane?) and the deep horrors from the deep that are pushed inward to the coast. Arkham being devoured by the sea is a wonderful thematic element.

Perhaps, some of those sea monsters, might be Deep Ones that are pushed inland, and unleashed on Arkham. Varying horrors from the seas certainly would be welcome by me.

Good work!

Thanx, and it doesn't say 5 clue tokens, it says 5 toughness worth of sea monster trophies or 1 gate trophy leading to the lost city of atlantis. But you may have a point. Do you realy think flooded streets should remain that way for the rest of the game with no way of drying them?

Ah, yes five toughness, sorry, went by memory as I couldn't scroll to your first post.

Yeah, I totally think a part of your expansion ought to include the nibbling away of Arkham by the ocean. Those floods might flow back to the sea, through some type of event, but otherwise let Arkham drown.

The swimming card might be reconsidered, for the bit about swimming between sea sections is a little far fetched. Basically, swimming at sea is a matter of life and death, and in stormy waters ones chances aren't good. Then add in sea monsters... If one wants to risk being devoured to swim at sea that might work. The action of last resort.

Hello Kroen,

I don't mean to usurp control over your vision. Nothing like having someone grand stand all over your work. I only offer these suggestions, as things that might make your expansion more interesting, and Lovecraftian.

Having looked over your map, the prison break out cards, and your general rule mechanics this is what I have considered.

Firstly, the map. The Deserted Isle can yield some pretty big rewards, but I think the primary reason someone would explore your map would be to visit the Drift Ashore location. That little island can house a lot of secrets. The tender of the lighthouse, might be an old recluse who has seen, and more importantly know many secrets of the horrors beneath the seas. Perhaps, the Drift Ashore location could be rip with clues. The special ability to learning swimming seems rather unappealing. I don't really think about the YMCA when I consider Lovecraft.

I might design the map in this way - Boat Passage - Open Sea - Prison at Sea - Deserted Isle - Drift Ashore - back to Boat Passage

All these locations would have an event deck, as each location is rich with story possibilities.

Boast Passage - the nature of the boat and its crew

Open Sea - the former and events at sea

Prison at Sea - Where is this Island? Who runs the prison? Is it on any known map? Cultists?

Deserted Isle - Just looking at the picture with the submerged skulls leads me to wonder about what lies beneath the surface.

Drift Ashore - The wise old man of the sea

The only way to reach Drift Ashore would be to travel the other locations first.

If a location event would cause an investigator to lose all sanity or stamina they end up at the Prison at Sea. Regain a small about of sanity and stamina.

Your escape rules are cool. Perhaps, create an option where an investigator can help rescue another investigator. If they do and are successful they might gain the skill of Heroism.

If an investigator escapes the Prison at Sea by themselves they end up at Drift Ashore, and from here they can take a rowboat back to Arkham or/and Kingsport.

You can have the monster movement the same and the vortex.

If a monster enters the vortex have the investigators draw from the Sea Deck. This deck would offer up all types of nasty lashings from the sea against Arkham - floodings, sea monsters, aquatic areas, weather effects, effects on the Sky, drowings, closings, and even a good thing or two, the retreat of the sea from a location.

A sea captain/sailor might make a great new investigator.

Just ideas to consider.

Take care

You have some nice ideas there, and I already made a couple of cool encounter cards (imo). And your idea of the Sea deck is what the special Mythos deck would be. In the rules I'm planning, you a draw a sea mythos card instead of a regular mythos card every two turns. Sea mythos card will always open gates in the Sea board, will always be burst cards, will always place clues at the sea board, and the gates placed there will always lead to lost city of atlantis (the lost city of atlantis gate markers would have a stack of their own). Also, monsters releasing there will always be sea monsters from the special sea monster cup.

Now I don't believe swimming from one sea location to another should be THAT life threatning, as the sea location are pretty close to one another (I mean in the real "place", not just the board).

And there's already a VERY good reason for investigators to explore the two yellow locations besides Boat Passage: To prevent monsters from entering the Maelstrom. All the monsters releasing at sea are released at the two red locations, which lead to either the Boat Passage or the other yellow locations, and these locations automatically lead to the Maelstrom. If investigators don't wish to have their precious streets flooded and the terror to rise, they will have at one point or another to get to the yellow locations to kill monsters, ending their movement doing so, and later on in the turn having encoounters there. I believe there's just about the right amount of insentive for investigators to go there.

Regarding your idea of investigators helping others escape: They can't do so in the place's special ability, but there are location cards that will allow them to. The location cards for Prison at Sea will each have (Imprisoned) and (Visiting). So when you're imprisoned you will have fights with inmates, plans to escape, etc, and as a visitor you could get some information (clues) from the guards and inmates and sometimes have a chance of helping another investigator escape. Ofcours, failing to do so will send you straight into the prison yourself...

Btw: I also plan to have Street Encounters deck for arkham streets. Not a deck for a every street, but one general deck for them all. It will add more interest to the streets when someone is forced to end his movement there after killing a monster. The street encounter cards will each be devided into two: (Normal) and (Flooded). The encounters in flooded streets will be stuff like "A Sea monster appears!", treasures that drifted from the sea, and etc. In normal streets there could be encounters like "A monster appears!" and stuff like "As you walk in the street your hear behind you "Psst, come with me, it's not safe here". Immediately move to a location in your current neighborhood and have an encounter there" and more fun stuff.

Tnx for your idea, I might use some of them.

p.s. I already have a Pirate investigator in the works, with the ability "Piracy: When drawing cards from the Treasure Item deck, draw an extra card and discard a card." He will also start with Swimming and Boat Ownership. I also plan to make an Escpaed Convict investigator, that starts with the Highly Wanted card and some flavorful abilities.

Here's an Ancient One that I'm really proud of its design, and I hope you like it too:

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click pic or follow this link for a larger pic: s5.tinypic.com/2yw63xx.jpg

And the first batch of investigatosrs:

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And the Highly Wanted card:

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This... this is awesome. I can already tell you that this will be top priority printing when it's done.

A few Treasure Items:

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Stay tuned for the next update, as it'll contain Rusty Weapons!

p.s. feedback/criticism/replies of any kind are always welcome

The Message said:

This... this is awesome. I can already tell you that this will be top priority printing when it's done.

Thx, and I promise to everyone I am going to see this expansion through. Shouldn't take long, either; I plan for around 20 Mythos cards (no need for more as there are only 2 unstable locations), 20 treasure cards (not including copies), 10 sea monsters (likewise), 5 investigators and 5 ancient ones. Oh, and a deck of around 10 cards for street locations and a Sea Encounters deck of around 20 cards.

Stability tokens, some rusty weapons, and a bonus:

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Another treasure item and investigator:

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Here's one nasty, nasty Ancient One, for experienced players only:

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A new bunch of cards!

By the way, I haven't gotten any replies on the Treasure Items yet, and I would love some so I would know what to improve. Thx ahead.

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new items and and new investigators:

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More Treasures:

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And what I believe to be the all-around single best weapon in the game:

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p.s. seriously people, is this material so bad it doesn't even deserve bad replies? :(

Another Ancient One, this time a classic one rather than an AO that tries to all smart:

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And yes I do mean gate burst, not gate surge. As I said earlier, ALL gates opening at sea locations are gate bursts.

I would love some feedback on something... anything....

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someone...? anyone...?

if there's a reason this placed have become a replies-graveyard I would appreciate it if someone would tell me why...

What I've seen so far looks promising. I suspect nobody is responding because it's hard to judge only a part of a custom expansion without seeing the whole thing. The parts which can be used outside of the expansion -- the GOOs (or some of them) and Investigators -- are being posted in other threads too, so those elements are getting comments over there.

Personally, I'm skeptical about Rusty Weapons -- I think they should count as Physical Weapons or Magical Weapons just to interact with Resistance and Immunity. But I'll wait to see the whole set, and then see the results of playtesting, before I come to any conclusions.

As for the Treasure Items deck, it's looking pretty interesting. I like that it has both spells and weapons in it, as well as other stuff. (But then, I am one of the few who actually likes the Exhibit Item deck.)

Once you've started posting the pieces that are necessary to use the board -- ie. the Mythos and Location cards -- I'll bet this thread will pick up a little more.

I find myself in agreement with Yenreb - I'll defer judgement until we have at least the completed rules. What you have so far is promising, though I find myself questioning the balance on the rusty weapons. The fact that they go away, eventually, sucks, but the bonuses they provide are a little on the ridiculous side, especially as they don't appear to count as physical or magical for resistance/immunity. On the upside, they seem hard to get a hold of (like Exhibit Items), so it may be a bit of a wash, all told. I'm very much interested in seeing how your Mythos cards play out, and just generally interested in seeing complete rules. I will say that I think this stuff is much better than the Capital Wasteland Horror stuff, though I will admit to liking the spells you put up for that. Good work so far, finish it up and it will be outstanding.

I guess I'll voice the opinion that the rusty weapons seem totally fine. From what I've seen, the bigger the weapon, the worse the stability, so you really only have a couple of turn to use it. Remember that the weapons degrade each turn, not just each use, so a stability of 5 or 6 really isn't going to last you long enough to grossly turn the tide of the game. Also, they are much more difficult to acquire than common and unique items, which is always an important consideration.

Tnx for the replies everyone.

Soon I will post the full rules and then I will start spoiling some Mythos, Location and Gate cards.

And just to clear things out: Rusty Weapons suppouse to ignore Resistances and Immunities, but they have the drawback that they eventually wear out. That, and the rariry of them make them balanced IMO. Regarding Water Sword, a Rusty Weapon that don't degrade (look it up on this page) I believe it's also balanced because it's a two-handed weapon that adds +4 to combat checks (essentially the same as Martial Arts) and there's only one copy of it in the entire Treasure Item deck.

I'm working on the full rules as we speak. Expect to see them within the hour, probably less.

Cheers.