Chaosium Digest Volume 27, Number 1 Date: Tuesday, December 29, 1998 Number: 1 of 4 Contents: Setting the Standard: Corrupt Power (Shannon Appel) MYTHOS Editor's Note: Howdy all, and welcome to my last issue as editor of the Chaosium Digest. I'm moving on to others things, but I expect you'll continue to see my name in these parts, on occasion, as a contributor. As of 1/1/99, the new editor of the Chaosium Digest is John W. Thompson. His email address is: gobackstage@prodigy.net All future submissions should go to him, and I hope you'll make him feel welcome by sending him a whole batch of submissions for his first issue. In the meantime, this issue I have two articles. The first is a short article on the Mythos MSGS that I wrote for Scrye magazine many aeons ago, but was never published; now you can see it here. The second is a three part Call of Cthulhu adventure, submitted by Paul Williams. Before I go, I want to say thanks to everyone who's been around for my run at the Chaosium Digest: to all the subscribers that made it worthwhile to put this ezine together every few weeks and to all the contributors who made it possible. I wish John the best, and hope that the Chaosium Digest keeps going for many years to come. Because I'm a numbers junkie, a few numbers from my run on the Digest: Total Number of Issues: 316 Total Word Count: 1 million Original Number of Subscribers: 56 Current Number of Subscribers: 1558 And here's a few counts on articles, arranged by game system: Call of Cthulhu: 268 Cthulhu Now: 17 CoC Dreamlands: 10 CyberCthulhu: 4 Cthulhupunk: 4 End Time: 2 Cthulhu 1889: 1 Cthulhu 1890s: 1 Mythos: 121 Pendragon: 120 Elric!: 76 Hawkmoon: 4 Stormbringer: 6 Nephilim: 65 French Nephilim: 9 And finally, a special thanks to some of the most frequent contributors during the last five years: Cedric Chin (53), Eric Rowe (26), Guy Hail (17), Paul Williams (16), Heidi Kaye (14), Timothy Ferguson (13), Stefan Matthias Aust (13), Frederic Moll (12), Eamon Honan (11), Peter Corless (10), and Jason Corley (10). And, once more, thanks to everyone who didn't make my arbitrary cut-off point of ten, if they contributed 9 or 8 articles, or even 1--every single article has gone to making the Digest better. If you've stayed with me this long, 'lo and behold, there's an article here, just below. A happy new year to all, Shannon -------------------- From: Shannon Appel: Subject: Setting the Standard: Corrupt Power System: Mythos SETTING THE STANDARD: CORRUPT POWER How to Tune the Mythos Standard Corrupt Deck by Shannon Appel The Mythos Standard Game Set presents a pair of two pre-designed decks--one Steadfast, one Corrupt--for use in the Mythos game. It's a great way for newcomers to enjoy the game without having to worry about the aspect of collectibility. However the decks were designed with variety and a minimum of repetition in mind. As a result, although they work great for enjoyable play, they're not Killer Decks. This article runs through one option for optimizing a MSGS deck. It follows the standard rules for a MSGS sealed deck tournament. In these tournaments, each participant is given a sealed deck of MSGS cards. They have a short time to make one optimized deck from the 104 cards in MSGS, mixing Steadfast and Corrupt willy-nilly. I've tried to keep this deck slightly more coherent than a totally mixed deck by just focusing on one of the decks, the Corrupt one. This article discusses all the decisions made in optimizing this deck. In the course, I hope to highlight many of the decisions important for constructing any deck in the Mythos game. Making decisions by card type seemed to be the most profitable, and Adventure cards seemed the best place to start. ADVENTURE CARDS Each MSGS deck contains 4 Adventures totalling 27 points. This was done so that an opponent would never know exactly what adventure you were working on. Given that I'm constructing a tuned deck here, I've decided to throw out that little extra insurance. The basic MSGS Corrupt Deck has Adventures of the following values: +5, +7, +8, +8. I could eliminate any one of them, but it will be most efficient to eliminate a +7 or a +8, otherwise I'll have to work extra hard in order to win. In choosing Adventures for decks, there are three main criteria. First, you want to have a number of cards that can satisfy each Adventure requirement (e. g., if I have an Adventure requiring a Corrupt Cultist, I want to make sure I have at least two Corrupt Cultists). Second, you want to try and make the Adventures overlap as much as possible (e. g., if one Adventure requires a Corrupt Cultist, it's optimum for the others to require Corrupt Cultists also). Third, you want to try and make sure that as many of the cards as possible can stay out between Adventures (e. g., Monsters and Locations usually get Buried in your Story Deck, and thus don't stay out). There are four Adventures in the Corrupt Deck: Questionable Judgement, Alone in the World, The Price, and Whispers in Darkness. After running through my criteria, I find the Corrupt deck doesn't do a great job of meeting my first requirement; there are a number of requirements in the adventures which can each only be satisfied by one card. Whispers in Darkness is the worst. It requires: Henry Akeley, Tome, Speech Machine, Lonely Akeley Farmhouse, Car, N'gah-Kthun, and Government Cover-Up. Though there are two Cars and two Tomes in the deck, there is only one of each of the others. If I had a second Corrupt deck, I could fix this pretty easily, by duplicating each of these cards, except N'gah-Kthun, who's unique. However, given that I don't, this Adventure is the most dificult in the set. I decide to remove it. The other Adventure cards aren't quite optimal either. Alone in the World requires Ambush, Servitor of the Outer Gods, and Forgotten Crypt, while The Price requires N'Kai, Enchanted Knife, and Tulzscha. N'Kai and the Servitor are unique, but not having duplicates of the others hurts. Still, it's the best possible given this set of Adventures. There's actually one more snag in Alone in the World: it requires two cemetary Locations (besides the Forgotten Crypt) and there are only three cemetary Locations (besides the Forgotten Crypt). That can be fixed though, since it isn't a specifically named card. Dropping Whispers in Darkness is going to allow me to also drop a number of other formerly required cards as I move through the rest of my deck. LOCATIONS In general, you should try and keep Locations to just a few different subregions. Turns are very valuable commodities in Mythos, and since walking takes a turn, you want to avoid it whenever possible. My first thought is to drop Vermont. Vermont is Country, and in general Country Locations are time-wasters. Two of the Vermont Locations need to stay: Waterbury (which is a Sanitarium) and Newburyport Public Library (which is a Library, required for Questionable Judgement). The other two cards: Loneley Akeley Farmhouse and Newburyport Historical Society can both be dropped. In exchange I add the following cards from the Steadfast deck, which are all Kingsport, and thus make the deck quicker: Central Hill, Old Congregational Church, and the Old Gibbet. These are all cemetaries, which should strengthen the Alone in the World Adventure. ALLIES You don't want an Ally in a deck unless you have at least four or five places to find him. Arkham only has two Locations. After my reduction, there are only two Vermont Locations. Thus, the following three Allies are dropped: Ray Stuckey (a Corrupt Arkham Police Detective), Henry W. Akeley (a Corrupt Vermont Cultist & Scholar), and Miss Anna Tilton (a Steadfast Vermont Friend). They can be replaced with: Samuel Windsor (a Steadfast Priest), Granny Orne (a Steadfast Kingsport Widow), and The Terrible Old Man (a Corrupt Kingsport Cultist & Seaman). This serves a number of purposes. It makes the deck faster by concetrating Allies in the places you're most likely to be, and it also makes the adventures slightly simpler. Corrupt Cultists are required by all three of my Adventures, and a Steadfast Ally is needed for the Price. However, Ray Stuckey, a Corrupt Police Detective, was dead weight, useful for no particular Adventure. With my new Allies, I've now got one Corrupt Cultist and two Steadfast Allies. They're all useful for Adventure completion. TOMES Just as Allies are keyed off of Location subregion, Tomes are keyed off of Ally language. You need the one card out before you can play the other. This can be a serious limitation. Thus, you don't want a Tome in your deck unless 4 or 5 Allies can speak its Language (or your Investigator can). The Hutchinson Cipher is in Glyphs. Originally I had two Allies who could speak that Language. After getting rid of Akeley, I only have one. I decide to get rid of it and replace it with Letter from a Friend, an English Tome from the Steadfast deck. SPELLS You usually don't want to have more Spells than you have spaces in Tomes. Since I've just reduced my Tome capacity from 3 to 2, I'm going to want to remove a Spell. I can no longer use Command of the Bloody Tongue since it required a Water Tome, and the Cipher was my only one. It's discarded. Petrify is only of marginal use, thus it's discarded as well. I decide to add Blasphemous Obeisance from the Steadfast Deck. MONSTERS When building a deck, you usually want your Monsters to work together well. There's too much variety in the Corrupt deck for that to be the case. Two Monsters in particular stand out: the Servant of Glaaki and the Dark Young. They'd work great if I had others to Join with, but only having one is an annoyance. In exchange I add the two Hunting Horrors. I keep the other corrupt-deck Monsters. ARTIFACTS The corrupt-deck selection of Artifacts looks pretty good. I have three Weapons, which will help my Allies, and will also help me complete Alone in the World, which requires a Weapon. I also have the Speech Machine, which makes my Mi-Go horde better. They all stay. I also decide to add the Faithful Hounds from the Steadfast Deck. They're another Weapon, and they're also a powerful defense against Monsters. EVENTS I quickly exchange Midnight for High Noon. My Hunting Horrors get better during the Day, so this is a natural choice. Dysentery and Succumb to Temptation are both very useful if you want to follow them up with a Monster attack. However, most games are won by Adventures not by combat. This is especially true in Tournaments, where you place depending on the number of Adventure points you complete. Thus, I decide to get rid of both Dysentery and Succumb to Temptation. Now, there's a very powerful class of cards in Mythos called discarders: they remove cards from play. And, discarded cards can't be used in Adventures. The Corrupt deck already has one: Government Cover-Up. I decide to keep it. I also choose another discarder from the Steadfast deck: Cthulhu Rising. Finally, since I need one more card, I add the Portaphobia from the Steadfast Deck. SUMMARY At this point I've gone through all the cards. The most important things I've done fall into two broad classifications: I've sped things up by consolidating on certain cities, and I've also made the Adventures easier by providing more duplication of required cards. STRATEGIES The toughest Adventure in this deck is The Price, because it involves getting out a GOO. Play the Price as your first Adventure, and opponents will be less inclined to stop you. If you summon Tulzscha at N'Kai, an Exotic Location, you can't have your Location removed by Events or Spells, which protects you a little. This also has the side benefit of making it look like you're losing at the start of the game, when you're really doing your hardest Adventure first. Try and get a Corrupt Cultist out, and give him the Enchanted Knife. If you can keep him out, he'll be useful for both Alone in the World and Questionable Judgement. Questionable Judgement is best to play last, since its the quickest. Monsters required for Adventures can slow you down, since you can't use them until they go from Threat to Story Deck. However, you can overcome them when completing Questionable Judgement by using Dust of Suleiman to get a Mi-Go straight to your Story Deck. This can cause a surprise win. Be careful on the Two Gate Locations (in Different Cities) requirement. There are only two Cities with gates in this deck: Kingsport and Arkham. Make sure you hold on to an Arkham gate. Blasphemous Obeisance is a great spell, but expensive to cast. You might want to give it to the Terrible Old Man or Dr. Allen, so that you can cast it (once) for free. Finally, don't play Government Cover-Up or Cthulhu Rising randomly. If you're pretty sure they can harm someone's Adventure, use them. Otherwise, be prepared to discard them so you can draw cards more useful for your own Adventures. SUMMARY: THE TUNED CORRUPT DECK Investigator: Any Adventures: (C) Alone in the World (C) The Price (C) Questionable Judgement Allies: (C) Dr. Allen (C) Gomes (S) Granny Orne (S) Samuel Winsor (C) Squire Sawyer Whateley (S) The Terrible Old Man Artifacts: (C) .32 Revolver (C) Enchanted Knife (S) Faithful Hounds (C) Speech Machine (C) The Two Scepters Events: (C) Ambush (C) Car (x2) (S) Cthulhu Rising (C) Dawn of the Solstice (C) Efficiophobia (C) Government Cover-Up (S) High Noon (-) Portaphobia (x2) Locations: (C) Arkham Mystical Supply (C) The Athenaeum (C) Boston & Maine Train Station (C) Caverns Beaneath the Old Church (S) Central Hill (C) Congregational Hospital (C) The Forgotten Crypt (C) King's Church Cemetery (C) N'kai (C) Namquit Point (C) Newburyport Public Library (S) Old Congregational Church (S) The Old Gibbet (C) Providence Historical Society (C) Seventh House on the Left (S) Waterbury State Hospital Monsters: (S) Hunting Horror (x2) (C) Mi-Go (x2) (C) N'gah-Kthun (C) Servitor of the Outer Gods (C) Tulzscha (C) Yithian Spells: (S) Blasphemous Obeisance (C) Dust of Suleiman Tomes: (S) Letter from a Friend (C) Revelations of Glaaki --