Apologies if this is old hat, but I couldn't find a search feature on the forum. Can a character with willpower become insane if its text box is blanked by a card effect? And in a similar vein, can a character with a terror icon become insane if a card effect reduces its terror icon count to zero?

Thanks.

No apologies needed. It's always good to ask questions. The answer to both of your questions is yes.

If a character with Willpower has their text box blanked or if they just lose their keywords, then they can be made to go insane. If a character with Terror somehow loses all of their Terror icons, they can also go insane.

Note that there are a few cards that specifically state Terror icons don't protect characters from going insane (and I think there's at least 1 that allows you to make a character with Willpower go insane too), but these are rare.

EDIT: I found 2 examples of these rare "exception to the rule" cards:

Hanyatl's 7:13

Mass Hysteria

By the way, the search function is at the very top of the page next to the FFG logo. It's small and hard to find.

Thanks! The thing that had me hung up on those questions is the caveat in the rulebook:

Important Exception: Characters that have the terror icon or Willpower keyword can never ( regardless of card effects ) go insane for any reason.... <emphasis mine>

The examples I used in my questions are card effects, thus it seemed like the above bolded text would apply. Although something in the FAQ implied the correct answer. So I figured I'd just ask.

And thanks for pointing out the search feature. I've not been having much luck finding those recently...

Card games are all about the exception to the rule, which is of course why they all have such big FAQs.

The part of the rulebook you highlighted is accurate. Some cards can target a character to drive them insane, such as Victoria Glasser or Horrifying Daydreams . The rules are stating that these effects can't work on (or even target) a character that is protected by Terror icons or the Willpower keyword - unless either that card or something in play specifically states those characters are no longer protected. And as I wrote above, that's pretty rare.

By the way, if you have other rules questions or are just looking to chat about Cthulhu, I recommend hopping over to CardGameDB . It's a great message board that was recently purchased by FFG so it's still in the family, so to speak.

Note that some card effects, instead of removing icons, make it so that icons (or skill) aren't counted at a story - like White Out . In this case, the character's icons otherwise are still there, so a character with a terror icon that is affected in this way still cannot (be chosen to) go insane if the terror struggle is lost.

Excellent point. This also applies to cards like Mr. David Pan and Chess Prodigy that replace the icon struggle with something else (such as skill or by counting another type of icon).