This one is specifically designed for the new version of Lovecraft Country Horror, but should also prove troublesome with an expansion that uses vortices. Watch out for triggers on movement effects like Colour Out of Time and Space and Cthonian.

Final one. This one ties into a sub-theme in Lovecraft Country Horror: music.

I liked the effect where all the investigators have to draw encounters and check if they're gate matching.  Never seen something like that before.  Also really liked the Mordiggan art.

A Great Old One I've been working on, Cyaegha, who has had a few incarnation in this thread before.  My version focuses on the Vaeyen, who guard or possibly imprison Cyaegha... 

The basic mechanic is that the five Vaeyen appear around Arkham, where they sit in place and do nothing (being evasive and having no movement symbols), but they have to eventually be killed off before the game can be won.  Each one has a particular, different challenge to them (for example, the Black Light is very hard to find, the Burning Wing needs an ally and spells to be taken down, the Shining Dark is a brutal horror check), and each also has some cost to be paid even if you do win (being driven insane, losing your weapons, LiTaS...).  The investigators have the freedom to take them down in the order they choose, but all must be killed.

The Vaeyen return to the sheet when they are defeated... perhaps I should put that in the text to make it clearer?

Sure, you should specify on the AO that the Vayens return to this sheet when defeated. Just to make things a little nastier (and challenging), I'd suggest you that investigators cannot seal a gate if this makes the number of ES on the board equal to the number of Vayens on the AO sheet. Plus, make them roll one die during the final battle. No successes offers you a Blessing. Otherwise the risk is that you have a bunch of blessing investigators slaughtering the poor AO (rolling no successes on two Blessed dice is a 1 in 4 odd)

As for the other stuff... make the monsters have different movement patterns. The Black Light could be flyer. The Burning Wing could be a terrific Stalker (and reduce the awareness of the monster to -2). The Shining Dark as a fast monster, and the White Flame as a static monster (with an awareness of -2).

Your ideas are really interesting, anyway, just spice them up a little!

Julia said:

Normally I won't deal with an AO that has extra print outs, but I have to admit, I really like this one ;')

Seconding what Julia said, but I wanted to add that if you change the movement patterns, you should make the ones that move around not elusive, possibly make them stronger to compensate.  Although it'd be fun to make sure that at least one of them is elusive, if I were designing this, I'd make it the one that moves around on the board :') that'd make catching it quite the exciting hunt.

A potentially interesting change you could make to The Shining dark is making it so that whenever it moves into a space containing investigators, have them all be immediately driven insane.  (Sort of like Werewolf, but much nastier).

Also, you need to specify *when* the weapons or spells used vs. green moon are discarded, at the end of combat, or at the end of a round of combat.

@Julia

Yeah, you're right about the going back to the card, and probably about the elder signs equal to the number, not +1.  I'll change them in the next version of Cyaegha.  Also, you're probably right about the two dice...  Being blessed for four turns will probably make short work of the big eye guy.

@All

I am a little leery of making them too murderous to players who do not want to fight them, they're supposed to wait and guard Cyaegha, not go forth and kill everything in their path - something you go through, not that gets you.  That's why I made them all evasive, so they could be dodged if desired.

However, now that you guys bring it up, I suppose they could use a bit of teeth - perhaps mobile and no evasiveness but with pretty easy awarenesses so they seem scary without killing people THAT often.

How about this...

The Black Light - Stays evasive but gets the movement rules of the Green Moon - between evasion and fluttering all over the place, very hard to catch and kill.

The Burning Wing  - Becomes a fast monster, stops being evasive and with an awareness modifier of +0.

The Green Moon - Stops being evasive, -1 awareness.  Does not move normally, but whenever a gate is closed, he immediately moves to that location.  Also, make it clearer it is after a combat check, not the entire fight.

The Shining Dark - Stalker, and stops being evasive, -1 awareness, so if you fail to sneak away from it, good chance it'll drive you insane unless you walk around with massive Will.

The White Flame - Stationary, but has a decent awareness (say, -2), so its location is actually quite hard to get past without running into the White Flame.

I toyed with making the Black Light a flyer (the picture does have wings after all), but I wanted it to stay evasive as it fits the creature well, and having a monster descend from the skies onto a helpless player only to... hide from him seems somewhat odd.

Thanks for the feedback, tell me what you think of these changes please :)

Adelphophage said:

I liked all of the changes, except this one.  I feel like it's not very threatening, just a bit of a pain and will be very easy to defeat in combat once someone can pass the evade check.  I'd have it make people LITAS if they failed their combat or horror check against it also.

Also, the reason why flying can be annoying (in a good way), is you have to wait for a flying monster to come down from the sky (i.e. 33% chance per turn), so you have to plan ahead, it's not like elusive monsters are actually hard to track on foot :') just to engage in combat with. But giving it The Green Moon's movement type is a much better idea ;'D

Anyway, all in all, very cool designs.

I take your point about the flying, but I'd really hate to lose a game because bad luck made them stay up in the sky for six or so straight turns...  Having him pop from location to location makes him always at least theoretically possible to catch.  And good call on the LiTaS instead of dealing damage ;)

Also, Cyaegha now only causes you to roll one dice for being blessed/eaten, thanks Julia.

Latest and probably final version of the Vaeyen. 

*The -3 Awareness on the Black Light should be green, I know...

Everything's good, but "encounter" the shining dark doesn't mean anything in game jargon.  Do you mean evade, or enter combat with, or both?

What about pseudo-flying? Burning Wing moves every Mythos Phase (Green). If there are an even number of seals on the board, immediately move it to the Sky. If there are an odd number of seals on the board, draw a Mythos card and place the Burning Wing at the gate shown on that card. Now you won't lose 'cos of an airborne Burning Wing, but the players won't know where it's going to appear next and will have to plan accordingly.

Jake yet again said:

Could be both interesting and annoying, or terribly boring by game's end if you're hunting for the sixth seal

Avi_dreader said:

Supposed to be enter combat with, amended, thanks.

@Jake

As for the Burning Wing getting psuedo flying... The Burning Wing is not supposed to be stealthy, it's supposed to roam around and be in your face, because it knows you need a very specific kit to beat it (an ally and a good spell or two) you are unlikely ot have, especially early in the game.  The Black Light is supposed to be the sneaky one, is that what you were referring to?

Zoth-Ommog, Great Old One

I noticed that versions of Zoth-Ommog posted earlier by players have been deleted, so here's what I came up with for this Ancient One:

The Zoth-Ommog Token, given to the investigator grappled by Zoth-Ommog:

And the Tentacle of Zoth-Ommog:

What happens if tentacle kills investigator or drives him insane?