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Witness the Invocation

Published 4 December 2017 | Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Witness the Invocation

Find an Arkham Horror: The Card Game Invocation Event Near You

“They shuddered as they recalled tales of Old Whateley’s youth, and of the strange things that are called out of the earth when a bullock is sacrificed at the proper time to certain heathen gods.”
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

Greetings, investigators!

Once more, the hidden powers and sinister cultists of the world have begun their foul rituals. Once again, small tears have begun to appear in the thin and tattered veil that separates our world from those worlds of other dimensions too terrible to behold. Once again, we find ourselves beset by the gibbous, many-mawed, and many-tentacled terrors from beyond. Once again, Arkham Horror: The Card Game beckons to us.

We are being summoned. Only together—combining our skills, our wits, and our courage—do we stand a chance of surviving and forestalling the ruination headed our way. Don't worry that you are an unlikely hero; we are all unlikely heroes. Come join us, and help save the world.

Find an Arkham Horror: The Card Game Invocation Event near you!

What Is the Invocation?

The Invocation is a unique opportunity for you to head to your favorite local retailer, join forces with other fans of Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and revel in the game's pulp action and eerie, Lovecraftian mysteries.

At your Invocation Event, you might find other players waiting to tackle the challenges of a standalone scenario like Curse of the Rougarou or Carnevale of Horrors. Or, your Invocation Event might serve as the first in a series of weekly game nights, over the course of which you and your fellow investigators might try to solve the mysteries of the Night of the Zealot or The Dunwich Legacy.

Either way, you'll find your Invocation Event supported by an Invocation Kit that includes custom playmats and alternate art investigator cards for participants.

The alternate art investigator and mini cards for Daisy Walker (Core Set, 2) prepare you for the action to come. No longer is she closed up around the rare tome that she clutches close to her chest. Rather, we find her browsing a bookshelf by candlelight, presumably without the owner's knowledge.
And if Daisy's new card art speaks to her courage and resolve, the Invocation playmat whispers—or mutters, or howls—of the terrors that await you. Do you really want to enter that abandoned house? Do you really think your shotgun will protect you? Inspired by The Labyrinths of Lunacy, the Invocation playmat reminds you that the horrors of Arkham Horror: The Card Game can shatter your sanity just as easily as they can rend your flesh.

The Invocation Event's flexibility makes it an excellent opportunity for newer players to dive into the game, but it also represents a chance for veteran investigators to shine their flashlights into the darkest corners of Arkham—and discover any number of surprising twists.

Deliver Your Ultimatum

At the Invocation Event, even as you're battling monsters, resisting the corrupting influence of sinister magic, and scouring each new location for clues, you risk finding your games steered in new directions by the strange, overriding effects of several new Ultimatums introduced as optional rules.

Each Ultimatum is a restriction, limitation, or additional rule that makes the game harder for you and your group of investigators. You should think carefully about which Ultimatum—or Ultimatums—you'll use, because once your group has agreed to one, it is permanent throughout the duration of your event, including all scenarios that event encompasses.

For instance, you could play the standalone Curse of the Rougarou with the Ultimatum of Dread, which states that you do not skip the mythos phase in the first round of the game.

Or, you could use your Invocation Event to launch into The Path to Carcosa campaign with the Ultimatum of Survival looming over your head. While the mysteries of The King in Yellow are hidden before you, this Ultimatum lends additional color and import to all of your doubts and convictions, even as you delve deeper into the secrets guarded by the campaign's Cultists, Monsters, and Lunatics.

Altogether, the Invocation Event Outline identifies ten different Ultimatums that you can use at any of the game's difficulty levels. Importantly, these Ultimatums don't just add new difficulty, they reshape your games, mandating new approaches and ensuring that your Invocation games stand apart from those you play without Ultimatums.

The Truths You Will Never Unlearn

Head to an Invocation Event near you, and you'll uncover the hidden truths of the Arkham Horror Files universe. We are not alone in the universe. We aren't the sole authors of human history. And there's far more to the universe than our five senses and our science can detect.

Yet there are other truths you'll discover as well. The human spirit is a tremendous thing. Even a flawed investigator can make a difference. And you are not alone in your struggles.

There are other investigators ready to join you against the nefarious cultists and otherworldly terrors of Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Head to our Invocation Event page to find the venue nearest you!

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That Which Doesn't Kill Us…

Published 23 May 2017 | Arkham Horror: The Card Game

That Which Doesn't Kill Us…

Using Experience to Gain Strength in Arkham Horror: The Card Game

"I ought to be hardened by this stage; but there are some experiences and intimations which scar too deeply to permit of healing, and leave only such an added sensitiveness that memory reinspires all the original horror."
–H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

In Arkham Horror: The Card Game, it is the Roaring Twenties, and there is an electricity in the air. Hidden speakeasies play hot jazz in the cool of the night and young men and women walk through the moonlit streets, adorned in suits and dresses to fit the newest fashions. It is an age of automobiles, telephones, radio, and motion pictures.

But in the sleepy New England town of Arkham, there's yet another energy in the air—and it leaves you uneasy. You can't quite put your finger on it, but something about the town is… wrong.

You can't explain your beliefs in any manner that others would consider sane, but there are tremors—or shivers—in the world that most people ignore. Things you can feel, but only slightly, and that you cannot explain. Still, you have begun to recognize patterns among these sensations, and they lead you to believe that Arkham's gambrel roofs and stoic veneer conceal unspeakable and unfathomable horrors.

This is a town in which people suffer strange disappearances. And when their mutilated bodies emerge in the dark woods, the local police attribute their deaths to wild animals. But you suspect other forces—cultists, dark rituals, foul sorcery, and otherworldly monsters.

Layers Upon Layers of Mystery

In Arkham Horror: The Card Game, the deeper you look, the more convinced you become that things are never so simple as they may first appear. As you explore more of Arkham's many mysteries, each new clue hints at a deeper layer of truths, and when you pull back that layer, you find only another mystery underneath.

It is this spiraling descent into the game's mysteries that makes the Arkham LCG® such a fantastic take on the Lovecraft mythos, and it's this focus on the extended campaign that pushes the LCG far into the nebulous realm between the traditional card gaming and roleplaying experiences.

It's true that you can play your Arkham LCG adventures as standalones—perhaps using those games as chances to experiment with your decks or to probe their treacheries with investigators that you're prepared to sacrifice before you commit to the whole scope of the larger investigation. But, that fact aside, the core Arkham LCG experience focuses so heavily on the campaign that its scenarios are less like the self-contained games you expect from most customizable card games and more like the gaming sessions you'd enjoy within the framework of a larger roleplayign campaign.

You don't expect to know after a single session if you have "won" or "lost." You can only learn whether you've moved closer toward your goal or if it appears that you've lost a step.

And one of the ways that the Arkham LCG best mirrors this roleplaying experience is in its use of experience points.

Learning from Experience

The ability to gain and spend experience runs central to nearly every roleplaying system, providing you the means to grow and improve your character between adventures. While this growth isn't typically a part of card games, it's a key part of the Arkham LCG campaign experience—one that creates yet another series of bonds between you, your investigator, and your deck, which represents your investigator's unique personality, talents, weaknesses, and assets.

While the Core Set comes with a campaign of three scenarios, players are just now able to appreciate the full Arkham LCG experience as they play through The Dunwich Legacy campaign. With six of its eight adventures now in circulation—plus the ability to follow detours through the Carnevale of Horrors and Curse of the Rougarou side missions—The Dunwich Legacy allows us to better experience the richness of the game's mechanics for character creation—and evolution.

To summarize briefly, you create your investigator's deck at the beginning of the campaign, and then it remains unaltered throughout your adventures—except where you choose to spend the experience you've gained to make adjustments. Each card in Arkham Horror: The Card Game has a level, indicated by the number of pips by its resource cost in the upper left, and you can spend experience equal to a card's level to add it to your deck, replacing an existing card when necessary.

Have you had trouble dealing with the thugs and monsters you've encountered? You can spend four experience to arm yourself with a Shotgun (Core Set, 29), or you can spend three experience to draw upon the dark powers with which you've forged a Blood Pact (Blood on the Altar, 191).

You can also spend one experience to replace a zero-level card like Barricade (Core Set, 38) with a different zero-level card like "I've got a plan!" (The Miskatonic Museum, 107). And this ability ensures you have all the flexibility you need to adapt to the challenges before you, as does the fact that you can upgrade a lower level card like the level-one Aquinnah (Core Set, 82) for a higher level version by paying only the difference between the two.

Altogether, each expenditure of your experience points goes a long way toward shaping your investigator and the course of your investigations. And we have started to see a number of emerging trends.

Which Type of Investigator Are You?

The developers of Arkham Horror: The Card Game recently posted a survey through which they gathered a great deal of information about your experiences with The Dunwich Legacy. Among the many topics the survey addressed, one question asked, "What has been your favorite experience point expenditure?"

We saw a good variety of responses, but there were clearly a handful of cards that had sparked more passion. And, more importantly, these cards represented a few possible archetypes for how players—you—might choose to spend your hard-won experience.

The Opportunist

The first of our archetypes, the Opportunist, is marked by a tendency toward reactive card purchases and deckbuilding. The Opportunist is no hoarder, but most frequently views each experience gain as a chance to spend experience. The plan isn't to build toward a grand, sweeping strategy, but simply to take advantage of the new tools the next Mythos Pack offers in order to survive the challenges that lie before her in her next adventure.

Accordingly, the Opportunist tends to favor low-level purchases aimed toward greater flexibility, such as Pathfinder (The Miskatonic Museum, 108) and Adaptable (The Miskatonic Museum, 110).

Furthermore, the Opportunist's desire to find new tools with which she can combat the game's cultists, monsters, and mysteries may also spur her to travel on side missions to see what they may have to offer. After all, if she can book her ticket to Louisiana or Venice, the Opportunist might even find some new curios she can put to good use.

The Strategist

The most popular archetype at this time, the Strategist is more intentional with her experience point expenditures, using them to effectively reshape her investigator's approach to her adventures.

This archetype is best defined, at this point, by Permanent purchases like Charisma (The Essex County Express, 158) and Streetwise (Blood on the Altar, 189), both of which begin the game in play and lead to larger-scale deckbuilding considerations. By allowing you to recruit an additional ally, Charisma permits new card interactions, and Streetwise largely replaces any need for skill cards or assets that offer intellect or agility boosts but, instead, places greater weight on cards that grant you additional resources.

The Ritualist

Instead of looking for brand new tools or strategies, the Ritualist focuses on upgrading the cards already in his deck. At this point, this third archetype is marked primarily by upgrades to cards like Peter Sylvestre (The Dunwich Legacy, 33), Deduction (Core Set, 39), and Shrivelling (Core Set, 60).

Where others may react a bit more strongly toward the threat of failure, the Ritualist focuses, instead, on constantly improving his strengths—constantly building upon what's already working. Just as he might perfect his rituals with practice, he uses his experience to refine his deck, making it stronger and smarter card by card. His overall strategy won't change much, but his cards will be more efficient, more resilient, and will leave him better prepared for the challenges ahead of him.

The Collector

It takes a bit of restraint to become a Collector. With all of the game's monsters and treacheries pressing in upon you from all sides—and all of the low-level tools you can find in the Core Set, The Dunwich Legacy, and the various Mythos Packs—it takes a good deal of patience, or a discerning eye, to save your experience for the larger expenditures.

Marked by his interest in powerful and high-level artifacts like the Grotesque Statue (Core Set, 71), the Collector is willing to pass on smaller expenditures in order to save for these big, thematic purchases. Yet there's no shortage of flashy purchases available to these Collectors, and as we draw nearer the end of The Dunwich Legacy, we're only going to find even more of them.

We've already seen previews of the Lightning Gun (Lost in Time and Space, 301) and The Gold Pocket Watch (Lost in Time and Space, 305) that appear in the cycle's final Mythos Pack, but even if you can't quite hold out on your purchases until the bitter end, you can still find powerful tokens like the Jewel of Aureolus (Where Doom Awaits, 269) in the cycle's penultimate expansion, Where Doom Awaits.

Events May Challenge Us, But We Define Ourselves

No matter which archetype—or combination thereof—best suits you, the growth and evolution you enjoy over the course of an Arkham Horror: The Card Game campaign is a massive part of the game's appeal. And it's one of the hardest things to appreciate through your earliest adventures.

As we draw nearer to the end of the The Dunwich Legacy, we're finally starting to see the game's larger scope. It's part card game, part roleplaying. It's breaking down the barriers between dimensions. And even as it leads us toward the first campaign's thrilling finale, we cannot help but feel there are greater mysteries lying still deeper beneath everything we've seen.

Maybe some new card will help us resolve our ongoing investigation…

Are you intrigued by the principles of Arkham Horror: The Card Game? Then talk to your local retailer today. Your descent into madness begins with the Arkham Horror: The Card Game Core Set (AHC01) and The Dunwich Legacy (AHC02)!

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Terror in New Orleans!

Published 17 November 2016 | Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Terror in New Orleans!

Investigators from Arkham Are Now Looking into The Curse of the Rougarou

By Arabelle DeVries, The Daily Sun

It has been two weeks since the first of the so-called "Roux-ga-roux" murders was reported, and while the police have not yet made any arrests in the case, the murders have garnered the attention of at least five investigators from out of state. Led by Federal Agent Roland Banks, these investigators arrived yesterday from Arkham, Massachussetts, claiming they saw connections between the recent killings and a recent string of disappeared individuals they had been investigating in Arkham.

According to police Captain Marcel LaForte, the investigators and their inquiries have been stirring unrest among many of the more superstitious residents of the French Quarter. LaForte said these investigators have not yet violated any laws, but their arrival has led to an increase in the number of complaints and anonymous reports the department has had to field. Accordingly, he warned citizens to take their questions about The Curse of the Rougarou with a good measure of skepticism, reminding people that the police had already investigated and dismissed the rumors that had connected the recent string of killings to Voodoo influences.

A police sketch of the notorious "Roux-ga-roux"

It is clear, however, that the Captain's words have not resonated with the local population as fully as he would wish. Like many residents in the French Quarter, local store owner Jean Gris spoke of the power of Voodoo. "I don't know if it's Voodoo," he said, "but there are powers that the police don't always understand. It concerns us that they allow these murders to go unresolved just because they don't understand how they were committed. I believe there are many in the police who have their own religious faiths, so it's hard for me to understand how they can believe in some spiritual powers and not in others. In the meantime, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers, and grandparents are walking the streets every day, and there's still a killer at large."

Gris' words were echoed by those of the Reverend Father John Knowles, who said, "A few members of my congregation were among those who discovered one of the bodies. That discovery really shocked them, and they want answers. They're not happy with the police department's progress. While I don't necessarily see a place in the scriptures for the phenomena that Agent Banks suggested were connected to this Arkham Horror: The Card Game, I can appreciate their exploration of spiritual possibilities. The spiritual realm is real, and there is real evil in this world."

Surprisingly, while the "evil" nature of the murders appears to be the one thing that most of New Orleans has agreed upon, Agent Banks and his associates urged a more philosophical approach. "We are withholding judgment at this time," said Agent Banks. "The first thing to do is to gather evidence. Only then will we start to form a larger picture. From what I've seen, I'm not certain these killings were even murders. There is much about them that is animalistic. And there's still more that remains unexplained. My colleagues and I are looking into some of the leads we feel the local police may have overlooked, and we hope to come into some answers shortly. For now, we are focusing on the reports from local citizens and trying to meet with a local expert who may be able to provide greater insight."

Solomon's Wharf is the site of the most recent "Roux-ga-roux" slaying.

Agent Banks refused to say whether or not he and his colleagues were giving any serious consideration to the early eyewitness accounts of Tom Jardin, who had still been inebriated when the police discovered him lying in a nearby alley hours after the murder. It was Jardin's description of the killer that had first led to the idea of the "Roux-ga-roux," whom Jardin had claimed reeked of the bayou and "dark magic."

As for the direction of Agent Banks' investigation, The Daily Sun was able to gain greater insight from one of Agent Banks' fellow investigators, a librarian by the name of Daisy Walker. She said her speciality lay in obscure tomes of occult knowledge, and she told us that the investigators were hoping to meet with a "Lady Esprit," a Voodoo priestess said to reside in the bayou nearest the first and second murders. When we relayed this information to Captain LaForte, he said only that he was glad they wouldn't be inciting any more superstitions in the French Quarter. Then he chuckled and said he hoped they packed their galoshes.

November 16, 1925

About Curse of the Rougarou

A standalone scenario for Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Curse of the Rougarou is now available via FFG's in-house manufacturing. It can be played as a self-contained scenario, or it can be inserted into your larger Arkham Horror: The Card Game campaign as a side-story that costs one experience to begin and allows your investigators to brave untold dangers as they pursue a monstrous killer through the streets of New Orleans and the bayous of southern Louisiana.

Curse of the Rougarou is a deck of sixty-two cards, including a complete Arkham Horror: The Card Game scenario, rules, and two player cards—one asset and one weakness. It is now available on our webstore.

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