Rituals

By player1809340, in Fan Creations

Basically, I was reading through my brand new copy of 'Trail of Cthulhu' and realized that there are no spells in Arkham which requires more than one person to cast. While all of them take at least one person (obviously) and you can get Outside help (Lurker) you really can't co-op spells like you really, really should in the Mythos.

Then I reason, there's no spells big enough for that. They all are fairly small and anything you could consider a 'Ritual' is pretty much a Mission or Task. So, I decided to try something new and make a 'Spell' that required the grouping of all Investigators working together. The result is a Scenario--but not quite. And it's not quite a Guardian and not quite an Institute. Therefore, not knowing where to place this, I am putting it here and in my Creations thread. I might try and cook up other 'Ritual' cards and would like to see others do the same, especially folks far more cleverer than I!

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As a matter of clarity, in the effects description, you use the words, "all spells have an increased Spell Check difficulty of -1." When referring to spell checks, increased difficulty means you need to get more than 1 success, but then you say -1, so it sounds like you don't have to get any successes. Due to the contradicting nature of the previous statement, I am assuming you mean it's an additional -1 to the casting modifier. Is that correct?

The concept is a really good one, but I'm not sure why I would ever cast this ritual. Doing so locks me out of a gate sealing victory and speeds the arrival of the Ancient One. And even if I do succeed, the AO is only down 4 Doom and misses the SoB. That's only good if I want to take on the AO in the final battle, but that's something that should be avoided at all costs.

Maybe if when four Elder Signs were on the Doom track I removed all four AND two extra doom tokens from the Doom track, and we got our sacrifices back, then I'd have an adequate temptation risk / reward mechanism. Cast the ritual successfully and I get 2 extra doom to play with, but mess it up and I'll just end up speeding the arrival of the AO, whilst hamstringing myself in the process.

That was my initial thought, Jake, was to tick off a few extra Doom tokens, but I was uncertain if that would be taking off too much--the way I saw it, a total of 6 Doom tokens ticked off any given Doom track is almost half. And yeah, I did mark this specifically as being for a Final Battle against the AO since, essentially, you want to avoid it all costs because of how difficult it is. But then you've got a stack of items and cards that go unused (certain spells and the Epic Battle). So yeah, I might retinker it, along with the wording, Musha! And see what I can come up with again.

But it's not six doom tokens, it's two. Lets say you're fighting Ithaqua (Doom 11) and you decide to partake the ritual. Every Elder Sign Doom Token added to the end of the track effectively reduces the big snowflake's doom track by one. If I get three parts of the ritual down, then when the doom track hits eight Ithaqua wakes up! If I hadn't bothered with the ritual then the Doom track would still be on eight.

So let's say I kick off the ritual in time - which essentially means completing it by Doom 6 or 7, depending on whether you rule the ritual kicks in first or the AO awakening kicks in first (I'd recommend the former, the ritual may be a high risk strategy but you need to give the players enough incentive to consider using it in the first place), then I get to remove the Elder Sign Doom tokens from the track (but they wouldn't have been there in the first place, had I not followed the ritual, so I'm not really gaining anything) and two more Doom Tokens into the bargain.

On another topic, it might be interesting to have rituals that removed Heralds or summoned Guardians.

On another topic, it might be interesting to have rituals that removed Heralds or summoned Guardians.

Working on the latter.

Alright, I tweaked the mechanics of the first Ritual in an attempt to make it both easier to use and more worth the risk it takes to cast it in the first place. Essentially, I removed the use of the Doom track, instead using the Card as the 'counting' spot. That way, the Doom track isn't shortened. I also changed that while one can Seal locations to win, one cannot win by simply having all Gate closed. It makes more sense thematically since you are, essentially, making a 'big' Elder Sign to try and lock off a portion of the AO's power.

I cleared up the wording on the Spell difficulty, as Musha pointed out, AND I changed the end reward to be the removal of up to possibly six Doom tokens if the AO /does/ wake up, as well as giving a small boon to the Investigators just before the fight starts.

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And here is one for Contacting a Guardian. Nodens being the simplest one, this one gives a rather substantial pay-off IF the Investigators have the patience for it. My only doubt is the final cost in Sanity. Being 'Changed' by Nodens is supposed to, essentially, hollow out your personality a bit, and so I was on the fence about a permanent loss maximum Sanity or not. What do you think?

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Isn't Nodens lord of the Underworld or the Abyss? (I forget off-hand) It might be good from a thematic perspective to also use the ritual if an investigator is in the Abyss or the underworld, as well as in an aquatic location. Otherwise it looks pretty neat.

Isn't Nodens lord of the Underworld or the Abyss? (I forget off-hand) It might be good from a thematic perspective to also use the ritual if an investigator is in the Abyss or the underworld, as well as in an aquatic location. Otherwise it looks pretty neat.

Cross referencing the Arkham Horror card for Hypnos, which marks him as giving boons to Investigators in the Dreamlands and Underworld, along with the text in the Trail of Cthulhu player book which says Nodens is Lord of the Abyss, my money is that he rules the Abyss, though I may still be wrong. But I am glad you like it! I may print it and give it a thorough run through sometime soon.

Here is another Ritual, this one for a group of Investigators that may be on their last legs and need a second wind without worrying about having to lose valuable time, the burden of Injuries/Madness and the like. And all it costs is some Sanity and your own good conscience!

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You will notice, however, that it does NOT remove Corruptions. This is because, thematically, they strike me as more or less being a corruption of the mind and soul, rather than the body in its entirety.

I just wanted to chip in that I really like the idea of these. It never struck me that group rituals should thematically be a part of the game, but you're totally right that they should.

As far as effects go, I'm a little less sure as I'm not sure how often you'd convince me that performing them (the effort involved) would be worth the turns lost. Either way, great post. I may return with ideas later at some point (and critiques).

These are, more or less, in their starting stages--at least the concept is. I definitely want to find a way to streamline them so that they are a viable option in any given game, but for the most part, I've tried to limit their actual time to not more than maybe 1 -3 full turns. I definitely did my best to eliminate the 'Chance' factor that actually goes with most spells so that these happen every time without the group having to worry about them being a total waste.