I was brainstorming ways to use two ancient ones and hit upon this idea, one is the Main ancient one and one is the Other . Here is the basic rundown:

• The Main acts in all respects like an ancient one, gaining doom tokens and waking up, has 'worshipers' and 'stirs in his slumber'
• The Other hinders the investigators, but they can also draw on his power for help
• Drawing on the Other's power adds doom to his track, and some miscellaneous events can also add doom to his track
• Any turn that the Other gains doom tokens, its 'stir in slumber' and 'worshipers' abilities apply
• If the Other wakes up, the players must fight him to reset his doom track to half, and return him to sleep, then play continues
• If the Main wakes up, the players start the final battle as normal

So you need to write a bit of custom content for each ancient one you wish to use as an other, but that's about it. For example, consider using Cthulhu as the main and Cthuga as the other. The investigators get reduce San/Stam and scary cultists as normal, plus someone designs the following custom elements for using Cthugha as the Other.

So basically, the players are playing against Cthulhu as normal, but:

• When a weather mythos card comes up, Cthugha gets a doom token and his abilities activate for a turn
• Investigators can call Cthugha's fire by paying sanity, adding to his doom track, and suffering his abilities for a turn
• The game is harder because Cthugha occasionally causes hot weather and buffs fire vampires, even if the players don't use him
• The game is easier because the players can use Cthugha to roast monsters
• If they players aren't careful, Cthugha wakes up and needs to be defeated before the game can continue

I think this variant could be a cool way to use the less 'fun' ancient ones with short doom tracks and punishing doom-token adding abilities, such as Yig.

I heard there was an official scenario in which you fought both Ithaqua and Shudde M'ell at the same time, but I don't remember what the process was for determining which ones got doom tokens when gates opened. If I find it, I'll let you know, but that seems like a good place to look to explore other ways to tackle this idea.

It was Scenario n.5 from the Second League. You were to add doomers to one AO or the other according to the place where you had more monsters (upper half or lower half of the board). When you had a total of 12 doomers on both doom tracks, the AO with the highest number of doomers woke up.

Honestly, it was not worth playing, too easy to control and manipulate.

As for your idea, you're basically transforming an AO into a SuperGuardian: Cthugha's doom track is very long, so technically you're tranforming him into a gigantic Flute of the Outer Gods that can be used up to 6 times during the game, totally allowing you to control the most dangerous locations (like Devil Reef) or allowing you to clean stuff when you're to enter a gate with no time left.

Nobody will ever use the first ability: Weather environments are just weather environments. Mystic environments could be problematic (Ring around the moon, No one can Help you now, and so on), but there is really no reason to cancel a Weather card.

It's much more interesting (and challenging) the Janus Herald designed by Avi a life ago:

The weather ability is not optional. The idea is that it adds some randomness and makes the awakening of the ancient one unpredictable (obviously no one is going to intentionally fill up the last spot on Cthugha's track). Still, might change a use of Cthugha's ability to 3 or even 4 tokens, though the sanity cost is still there.

Using it to clean up devil's reef would actually be quite thematic, since the entire point is to use Cthugha against Cthulhu and devil's reef is basically the front door for Cthulhu's worshippers.

Uh, thanks for pointing out it's compulsory. Still, a normal game lasts 12 / 15 turns (depending on the number of investigators playing; 5 investigators can easily win by sealing in 12 turns, 4 in 15), so how many Environment (weather) are you to draw? In the base deck we have five weather cards out of 66 cards; this means that on average you draw 0.9 Weather cards in your game. Really, negligible (and this does not change with expansion because the ratio between environment and total number of cards is constant).

I'm simply pointing out that the advantages for such an exploit are huge when compared to the harm related to adding the extra AO. Allowing your investigators to simply sacrifice some Sanity to get rid of the monsters that could cause them to lose the entire game is simply broken.

You should consider shortening the doom track of the second AO (to something like 4 doomers) and consider adding some serious penalties when the Other wakes up

Thanks for the balance advice, I wasn't aware that weather cards were such a low ratio.

Shorting the ancient one's doom track is a simple solution (assuming it fills to full when it awakes and you don't have to fight a gimped version with only 4 tokens). An alternative is just ramping up the number of doom tokens added for his conditions (4 for using his spell or for a weather condition would mean that after any 4 occurrences he would awaken). Causing insanity rather than mere sanity loss for the spell use is also an option.

A better alternative might be to come up with a situation which occurs more regularly than a weather card being drawn (but many heralds, and game mechanics in general, can go entire games without being activated). I think Yig is a good example of an Other that shows a greater threat of waking up; whenever a cultist dies he gets a doom token.

A third idea could be that whenever a gate is sealed, the Other gains a doom token; he grows in power when the ancient one is weakened.

I think most of our games go at least 20 turns, but I could be mistaken.

Yes, adding some extra doom tokens each time an ability is triggered could work, but you have to consider how big you want the impact of the Other on the game to be.

For example, you created a Cthugha Demi-Herald. Let's say you go to final battle. It's very likely that your party will be completely slaughtered. It's a -5 combat rating, which implies it's strong enough to reduce to zero the Fight value of your strongest character. Plus after using a weapon, you have to discard it. Hence, even if your investigators manage to survive FB against him (which I doubt; if you look at Tibs' statistics, you'll see Cthugha is in the fourth place of the most difficult AO to win FB against, with 95% of victories for the AO), they won't have resources and weapons, hence, they will quickly be butchered by the game board.

So, if you accelerate the Demi-Herald to awaken, you risk to incinerate your party; if you shorten his doom track, then maybe they can manage to beat it.

You're right while saying that some Heralds have abilities that never trigger, and some other AOs have a more interesting design than others. Yig is totally good for this (but again we have already a good Yig-gish Herald, Seth, designed again by Avi), and probably some others could work well.

Anyhow, I'm not saying you should abandon the idea, but maybe you could consider working on specific Heralds whose power is simply boosted by the first AO doom track receiving more doom tokens (like: if Cthugha is the AO, when the doom track hits 6 it happens *condition triggered* and so on).

Or you can consider FB, but a FB that has to be fought by the first player only, with the additional condition of "if the FP is devoured then add two doomers to the AO doom track" or something similar, so that the game remains focused on the first AO, and the second one could create troubles, but not bend the game in a totally unwanted direction

I think most of our games go at least 20 turns, but I could be mistaken.

If you have expansion boards, you are probably mistaken. Once you add extra boards, it's a better assumption that your doom will go up a little less frequently than once every turn. Possibly .7 per turn if you want to be very generous with assumptions of luck in your favor. Even if you're a bit lucky, your games should be maybe in the 16-19 turns range. At least twenty is unlikely when you're playing with expansions.

Anyhow, I'm not saying you should abandon the idea, but maybe you could consider working on specific Heralds whose power is simply boosted by the first AO doom track receiving more doom tokens (like: if Cthugha is the AO, when the doom track hits 6 it happens *condition triggered* and so on).

That would be a *wonderful* idea for a series of heralds, Julia. One AO only heralds that are basically a list of triggers (and possibly a permanent environmental effect).

Thanks Avi. I took a couple of notes while having supper tonight. Just some rough ideas:

- Hydra: when the doom track hits 6, all investigators in the second area of an OW shift to the first area, all investigators in the first area of an OW go LITAS, and add a monster to the Outskirts of each investigator in Arkham

- Dagon: starting when the doom track hits 6, every Mythos phase all monsters on expansion boards move an additional time on the black arrow

- King in Yellow: when the doom track hits 6, put three Blights and the next act card in play

- Tzulscha: when the doom track hits 6, all cultists move and if any player has an Elder Sign, he's devoured

and so on.

Not so sure if this could work, but I somehow like the Hydra idea a lot (at least, this would give some dignity to the Herald)

Anyhoo, Avi, if you haven't noticed it yet, we are talking with Dj about some Plot quest cards for Heralds in the main forum. You should like the idea

Thanks Avi. I took a couple of notes while having supper tonight. Just some rough ideas:

- Hydra: when the doom track hits 6, all investigators in the second area of an OW shift to the first area, all investigators in the first area of an OW go LITAS, and add a monster to the Outskirts of each investigator in Arkham

- Dagon: starting when the doom track hits 6, every Mythos phase all monsters on expansion boards move an additional time on the black arrow

- King in Yellow: when the doom track hits 6, put three Blights and the next act card in play

- Tzulscha: when the doom track hits 6, all cultists move and if any player has an Elder Sign, he's devoured

and so on.

Not so sure if this could work, but I somehow like the Hydra idea a lot (at least, this would give some dignity to the Herald)

Anyhoo, Avi, if you haven't noticed it yet, we are talking with Dj about some Plot quest cards for Heralds in the main forum. You should like the idea

Oh, I didn't mean adding triggers to heralds (though that's cool too). No, I meant making a specialized herald for Cthulhu for instance, and then having it do something a 2 doom, 4 doom, 6 doom, terror 3, etc.

Ok, got it. Still, a lot of good things to do. Just waiting to finish the Quachil Herald (flapping eyelids... Avi... have you had a chance to think about it?) to move to the next step (the Shub Herald yo saw the first draft some months ago)