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Chaosium Digest Volume 22 Number 09
Chaosium Digest Volume 22, Number 9
Date: Monday, November 10, 1997
Number: 3 of 3
Contents:
Rating the Adventures, Part 3 (Cedric Chin) MYTHOS
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From: cchin@frk.com (Cedric Chin)
Subject: Rating the Adventures, Part 3
System: Mythos
** MODERATE ADVENTURES (CONT.)
ON THE EDGE: +6
Limited Edition. Providence.
The Adventure requires you to go nearly insane (six points of Sanity).
Cool. The cards required for this Adventure (specifically the Corrupt
Cultist, from MSGS, and the Doctor) can be found in Providence. The
Adventure does have a timing issue: you must "reroll" your
Investigator (by burying the Call of Cthulhu Tome while a Waning Moon
is in play). The Ring of Eibon (spend two Sanity to make a play for
another player), and miscellaneous obnoxious spells are great ways to
lower your Sanity.
ONE DARK AND STORMY NIGHT: +6
Limited Edition. Miskatonic Valley.
One Dark and Stormy Night takes place in Miskatonic Valley, plus any other
Sub-Region with a Church. Since Miskatonic Valley is a Country Sub-Region,
you will spend some time Walking from one Miskatonic Location to another.
THE SECRET OF POWER AND GLORY IS YOURS!: +6 (errata)
Limited Edition. Five different Locations with the Gate Attribute.
This Adventure requires five different Locations with the Gate
Attribute. A single Sub-Region City deck works best with this
Adventure, so you can quickly play the different Gate Locations.
However, if you're going to use such a deck, you might as well instead
build one around The Interesting Shop. At +5 points, this Adventure
requires four different City Locations with the Tome and Artifact
Attribute, and two Tomes and/or Artifacts. For one less point, you
have an Adventure whose required cards are more useful in play.
THE THERON MARKS SOCIETY: +6
Limited Edition. Fill-in Adventure. Country House.
The Theron Marks Society requires a Country House as its one Location
requirement. It also shouldn't be too difficult to play the Monster
and Weapon needed for this Adventure.
THE UNSPEAKABLE OATH: +6
Limited Edition. Innsmouth. Single Sub-Region City deck.
Centered on Innsmouth, The Unspeakable Oath requires three Weapons,
yet Innsmouth has few Artifact Locations, and few Innsmouth
Allies. (However, there are plenty of Any City Allies you can add to
an Innsmouth deck, and Innsmouth has the Waite House, a City Location
with both the Tome and Artifact Attribute.) The Adventure also
requires the Catastrophic Failure, which must have a Weapon as its
target. If no other player has a Weapon, you must target your own
Allies! But since it's a single Sub-Region City Adventure, and many
other Adventures take place in Innsmouth, these limitations are more
interesting irritations than anything else.
YOUR FIRST BIG STORY: +6
Limited Edition. Three different Cities.
Your First Big Story requires three different Gate Locations in
different Cities. That's lots of Walking. Not many Adventures need to
take place in three Cities. Since no European City Sub-Region has
enough cards to support an Adventure, only Europe would work well with
this Location requirement. However, Your First Big Story also requires
an Ally that costs Sanity, and Europe's only such Ally, Simon Orne, is
a Unique card. Since it's not terribly sexy and requires three
Sub-Regions, I don't have a Lovecraft Country deck for this Adventure,
but I have a curious interdimensional one in Europe.
THE ART OF MAGIC: +5
Dreamlands Adventure. The West and The East.
The Art of Magic requires three Locations, available in The West, and,
to a lesser extent, The East: a Library, a Site, and a Country Gate
Location. One of the Allies this Adventure requires is a Dreamer. Note
that you can make an Ally into a Dreamer by equipping him with the
Wine of Pnoth, or burying Thag Weed.
BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS: +5
Dreamlands Adventure. Fill-in Adventure. Exotic Location and Priest.
Beyond Your Wildest Dreams is one of the lowest-point Adventures
requiring an Exotic Location. Because of its low point score, it's
unlikely this will be the only Adventure requiring an Exotic Location
in your deck. If your deck has more than one Adventure requiring an
Exotic Location, include Create Time Warp (Eye icon spell, for two
Sanity, return any Location in your Story Deck to the top of your
Story Deck). Just before you score one Adventure requiring an Exotic
Location, cast Create Time Warp to place it on the top of your Story
Deck. After you score the Adventure, you will be able to start working
on your next Adventure with the Exotic Location already in play. This
avoids the difficulty of playing an Exotic Location again. This
Adventure can also be played in the Waking World. Although the Limited
Edition has no Priests, the Mythos Standard Game Set has a Priest,
Samuel Winsor. To follow the "Two of a Card" guideline, you'd need two
Samuel Winsors in your deck, which means you'd have to buy two Mythos
Standard Game Sets. Not surprisingly, I do not have a Waking World
deck with this Adventure.
FOUR-ARMED IS FOREWARNED: +5
Dreamlands. Multi-Regional, including theUnderworld.
This Adventure only requires two different Underworld Locations, but
the Underworld doesn't have enough Locations and Adventures to sustain
an Underworld-only deck. Thus, this Adventure can be part of
multi-Region deck, which includes the Underworld. The Chant of Thoth
works well with this Adventure. While you're working on this
Adventure, you can use the Chant to discard non-Underworld Locations.
KNEE-DEEP IN DOOM: +5
Limited Edition. Any Region(s). 20 points of Monsters.
Knee-Deep in Doom requires 20 points of Monsters. With the Two of a
Card guideline, that translates to 40 points of Monsters. With a
minimum of Sanity loss and desire for Joining Monsters, the result of
this requirement are Dimensional Shamblers, Byhakee, and
Shantaks. Dimensional Shamblers are 4-point Monsters that Join, and
require one Sanity to play. Byhakee are 4-point Monsters, which allow
Travel by Monster, and cost no Sanity to play. Shantaks are 4-points
Monsters, which allow Travel by Monster, and cost one Sanity to play.
The problem with so many Monsters is that they do not enter your Play
Area. None of the cards required for this Adventure will shrink your
deck. In addition, with ten 4-point Monsters in the deck, it's not
easy to find another Adventure that overlaps well with the cards
required for this Adventure. The Byhakee and Shantaks, as Travel by
Monster, perhaps will work fine in a Country and/or multi-Regional
deck.
One exception is if you have the Kitab Al-Azif. With this Tome, you
can play Monsters as Allies (and vice-versa). As a result, you will be
able to remove the Monsters from your Deck into your Play Area, and
shrink your Deck. Then sacrifice them all (and convert them to Sanity)
with Call Power of Nyambe! (Call Power of Nyambe is a yellow sign icon
Spell. For two Sanity, you may bury any of your Allies and add their
value to your Sanity.) Woohoo.
A LENDER BE: +5
Dreamlands. The East and The West.
Note that you may only have four cards of one title (even if they have
other differences) in a deck. This Adventure requires three different
Great Library of the Dreamlands cards, but since each such card is
titled as the Great Library of the Dreamlands, you can only have four
such cards in your deck. This violates the Two of a Kind
guideline. Furthermore, one of the Great Library cards is a Rare
(Dyath-Leen), and two of the cards are in The East, while two are in
The West. Thus, you may find yourself trapped in one Region, and will
need a Travel Event or Spell to return back. Otherwise, this isn't too
difficult an Adventure, especially since the Allies and Tomes required
by this Adventure may be found in its required Locations.
PERCHANCE*: +5
Dreamlands. The East.
Celephais is a City with both the House and Palace Locations, so works
well with this Adventure. Celephais also has a good variety of City
Locations with the Tome or Artifact Attribute, so can be used with The
Interesting Shop, and can be used to put Tomes and Artifacts into play
quickly. Note that the Opal Throne, a Palace in Ilek-Vad, is a
required card for other Adventures. Since Celephais is in the same
Region as Ilek-Vad, it's not difficult to add Perchance to a deck with
an Adventure requiring the Opal Throne.
QUESTIONABLE JUDGEMENT: +5
Mythos Standard Game Set. Fill-in Adventure. Two Gate Locations in
different Cities, Corrupt Cultists.
Because this Adventure requires Corrupt Cultists Providence (with the
MSGS's Gomes and Dr. Allen), and Innsmouth (with the various Marsh
Cultists) are Cities you will have in this deck (following the Two of
a Card rule). Because of the requirement that the two Gate Locations
must be in different Cities, this Adventure works in any
two-Sub-Region deck that includes Innsmouth and/or Providence.
It's not impossible to play this Adventure in the Dreamlands. However,
you cannot build a deck that is in only one Region, has only two
Sub-Region Cities with Gate Locations, and can allow you to place more
than one Corrupt Cultist card in your deck (Corrupt Cultists tend to
be Unique) to follow the Two of a Card guideline.
Two Cities and a Tale: +5
Mythos Standard Game Set. New York and Kingsport. Locations in New
York and Kingsport.
Since this Adventure requires Locations in New York and Kingsport,
it's a dual Sub-Region City deck, which plays slower than a single
Sub-Region City deck. Furthermore, it includes New York, which has
fewer Adventures that play better with it than other single Sub-Region
Cities, such as Arkham.
** MODERATE - EASY
Although these Adventures have high point values, many of them work
well as Fill-In Adventures.
THE EXPEDITION: +11
Limited Edition. Arkham.
The Expedition's strengths are that it requires only two Locations (a
Miskatonic University Location and a Site), and requires two Events
with high play value (Unexpected Calamity and Amnesia). Although the
Miskatonic University Location requirement causes the deck to include
Arkham, many non-City Sub-Regions have Sites, including those in other
Dimensions. Thus The Expedition can be used to complement other more
difficult Adventures. Unexpected Calamity is a useful Event that ends
the Round. Amnesia forces your opponent to discard a card from his
hand; with luck, you'll force him to discard the Adventure he is
working on, or a card he needs to play. The requirement of Three
Monsters is a little tricky, but either you can play Living Dead, or
Giant Albino Penguins, so that you can play many Monsters at a Gate
Location.
THE AUCTION: +9
Limited Edition. Europe, Lovecraft Country.
The Auction is a dual-Region Adventure, taking place in Europe and
Lovecraft Country. Its required cards all have some benefit. The
Europe Location is the Vienna House, which has both the Tome and
Artifact Location. The Lovecraft Country Locations are any two
different City Locations, which can include the two Lovecraft City
Sanitariums, located in Arkham (Arkham Sanitarium) and New York
(Bellevue Hospital, from the Mythos Standard Game Set), or any
Locations in a single Sub-Region City. The other cards required are
Tomes, Artifacts, and Events, which can be found in any Region. The
Events themselves are the useful Thieves in your Attic and Police
Investigation. Since there's only one Europe Location, you can build a
deck that is primarily based in a Lovecraft Country City Sub-Region,
with the Fly Spell or a Travel by card to reach Europe. Or, you can
build a deck that's based in both Lovecraft Country and Europe.
SECRETS OF THE SILVER TWILIGHT: +8
Limited Edition. Boston.
Secrets of the Silver Twilight has but one Location, the Silver
Twilight Lodge, and at that Location, you can play all the Tomes,
Artifacts, Allies, and Monsters you need for this Adventure -- plus
any you can for the other Adventures in your deck! Watch out for
Phobias or anti-Location Events that prevent you from staying at the
Lodge.
THE INTERESTING SHOP: +5
Limited Edition. Any City.
The Interesting Shop requires four different City Locations with the
Tome or Artifact Attribute, and an Artifact or Tome costing Sanity.
Thus, it pretty much rewards you for playing cards you'd put into a
City deck in the first place. Its four Locations prevents it from
being a broken card. You can play this Adventure early in the game, by
visiting Locations to play Allies, Artifacts, and Tomes you need for
your other Adventures. You can also play this Adventure late in the
game, after all your Allies, Artifacts, and Tomes have been played. By
hoarding City Locations necessary for this Adventure, you can play
this Adventure one Round after scoring your previous Adventure.
** BROKEN
THE SUN WORSHIPPERS: +10
Limited Edition. Cairo.
The Sun Worshippers takes place in Cairo, in the Middle East. None of
the requirements are particularly difficult to play and some are ones
you would want in the deck: Travel by Camel Events, Allies, and Cairo
Locations (which include two Sanitariums and several Locations with
the Tome and/or Artifact Attribute). The Sun Worshippers and the
Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh greatly overlap in their
requirements, making two easy Adventures even easier.
BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLACK PHARAOH: +9
Limited Edition. Cairo.
Like the Sun Worshippers, this Adventure takes place in Cairo, in the
Middle East. None of the requirements are particularly difficult to
play and almost all are ones you would want in the deck: Allies, Tomes
and Artifacts, and Cairo Locations (which include two Sanitariums and
several Locations with the Tome and/or Artifact Attribute). The Sun
Worshippers and the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh greatly overlap
in their requirements, making two easy Adventures even easier.
SEEKING EVERLASTING LIFE I: +5
Limited Edition. Any City.
** APPENDIX
EVENTS: DECKS WITH SEVERAL EVENTS
Events have the advantage of being playable anywhere. As a result, an
Adventure heavy with Events can be played as easily in a
multi-Dimensional or multi-Regional deck as a single Sub-Region deck.
Events have a disadvantage of being buried (faster than Tomes,
Artifacts, and Allies, and about as quickly as Locations and
Monsters). Thus, if you play an Event during an Adventure, you cannot
expect it to be in play (and thus being applied to) the next Adventure
you are working on. In other words, you should expect to need to play
all the Events in an Adventure while you are working on it. Compare
this to Tomes and Artifacts, which tend to remain in the Play Area,
and thus may be applied to more than one Adventure.
The more cards you need to play to score the Adventure you are working
on, the less likely you will draw all of these cards during a
Round. Since you will need to play all the Events of an Adventure
while you are working on it, the more Events required by an Adventure,
the less likely you will have them all in your hand at the beginning
of a Round. Thus, you are likely to need more than one Round to finish
an Adventure requiring multiple Events. Since Events are buried they
cannot be taken out of your Draw Pile to the Play Area, unlike Tomes,
Spells, Artifacts, and Allies. Thus, a deck heavy with Event cards
will, towards the middle and end of the game, have a larger Draw Pile
than that of a deck that begin with Tomes et al. Finally, if an
Adventure requires decks with low play value Events (e.g. Day and
Night Events, as opposed to Unexpected Calamity and Amnesia), and
these Events cannot be applied to more than one Adventure in the deck,
these Events pretty much become "dead space" when scoring the other
Adventures in the deck.
While Chant of Thoth and an Investigator with a discard-and-draw
capability help any deck they particularly help a deck heavy with
Events. If you are working on an Adventure and need only to score the
last few Event cards, you can discard almost any card from your hand
to draw an Event, which you can play anywhere, including your current
Location. Likewise, if you no longer need the Events in your hand, you
can discard them, and draw better cards.
GOOS: SUMMONING GOOS
It's much more difficult to get GOO into play than a normal
Monster. To summon a GOO, you must have both its requirements in play,
typically an Event and a Location. (You cannot use another player's
Event to summon your GOO.) The Events are commonly Day, Night, or
Storm Events, which are easily removed from play by playing a Day or
Night Event. To overcome the difficulty in bringing out these
requirements, play the Shining Trapezohedron, an Artifact. This
Artifact can be buried to take place of one of the requirements to
summon the GOO.
GOOs, of course, are thoroughly obnoxious. They prevent Sanity gain
for the current and next Rounds. They're also sexy and have cool and
obnoxious effects. You can play them with Giant Albino Penguins (and
Buopoths). On a more subtle side, unlike Monsters summoned face-down
to your Threat, you can apply a GOO to your Adventure immediately,
instead of waiting until it's buried in your Story Deck.
If you wish to remove a GOO from play, you can cast the Sign of Eibon,
a Diamond-icon Spell, or the Elder Sign, an Eye-icon Spell. The Sign
of Eibon buries a random Monster in an opponent's Threat. The Elder
Sign, which is buried when cast, buries a GOO in play.
INTERREGIONAL TRAVEL
You must play a card to arrive at another Region. As a result,
multi-Regional decks are significantly harder to play than decks
located in a single Region. A worst-case scenario is a player who
needs to play an Ally in another Region, has a Location where he can
play the Ally, but cannot arrive at the Location. Not only can he not
make the play, but also he may have to discard the Ally or other
Location. The following cards are suggested for interregional travel:
* Fly Spell, Diamond icon: This spell allows you to Walk to another
Location, except Exotic, including one in another Region. This spell
can be used during the Spell phase of Combat, essentially allowing
you a free turn.
* Cockpit Monoplane, Travel by Air, Event: This Event allows you to
immediately play a Location in another Region, except Islands. Note
that since many Europe and Middle East Locations lack the Water
Attribute, you should not rely upon a Travel by Sea Event to travel
to Europe or the Middle East.
* Travel by Monster: By Summoning a Nightgaunt, Byhakee, or other
Monster that allows you to Travel, you can travel from one Location
to another, sometimes including Space (Angles of Tagh Clatur
allows you to summon a Lesser Servitor [i.e. a Nightgaunt or
Byhakee]). Travel by Monster also allows you to quickly Travel from
one Country Location to another, as well as summon an Monster to
attack an opponent. Of course, include this method of Travel if you
are required to play a Monster for an Adventure in your deck.
* Create Time Warp, Spell, Eye icon: This spell allows you to return
to a Location in your Story Deck (by placing it at the top of your
Story Deck). This allows you to return to a Location in another
Dimension (or Region), especially if the Location is particularly
useful. You can't always rely upon this spell, since after you
complete an Adventure, you shuffle your Story Deck into your Draw
Pile.
INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL
While travel between Regions requires only certain Travel Events and
the Fly Spell (with Create Time Warp to return, if necessary),
interdimensional travel has many other, sexier, options.
* Gate of Oneirology, Spell, Diamond icon: This Spell allows you to
play a new Location in another Dimension as if Walking, for one
Sanity. This is my favorite way of interdimensional travel, because
Tomes and Spells are difficult for opponents to bury, and you can
even play this spell during the Spell phase in Combat (free turn!).
* The Silver Key, Artifact: This Artifact allows you to play a new
Location in another Dimension as if Walking, by using a Gate
Location. This isn't as easy as it sounds, especially if you need to
use the Gates for Monsters, and since Dreamland Locations tend to
have fewer Gates than Waking World ones.
* Captain of the White Ship / White Ship combo: After my Captain was
buried (twice!) by the Pipes of Madness (Diamond icon Spell, bury an
Ally of 1-point value for one Sanity), I became even more sure that
you can't rely upon this combo in an interdimensional deck. If you
have the Captain in play, the White Ship, a Travel by Sea Event, can
arrive at another Location in another Dimension, or an Exotic
Location.
* Create Time Warp, Spell, Eye icon: This spell allows you to return
to a Location in your Story Deck (by placing it at the top of your
Story Deck). This allows you to return to a Location in another
Dimension (or Region), especially if the Location is particularly
useful. You can't always rely upon this spell, since after you
complete an Adventure, you shuffle your Story Deck into your Draw
Pile.
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