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Going Deep Into Tartarus

A Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game spotlight by guest writer Marius Hartland

They must be, he felt inwardly, the heirs of some shocking and primordial tradition; the sharers of debased and broken scraps from cults and ceremonies older than mankind. Their coherence and definiteness suggested it, and it shewed in the singular suspicion of order which lurked beneath their squalid disorder.

   –H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror at Red Hook

Hunting for Relics is one thing, but while the different factions of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game traverse the globe in their pursuit, what does the Ancient Relics cycle of Asylum Packs recall of the old races that have previously made such wonderful adversaries (or allies)? When you look deep Into Tartarus, you’ll see they’re anything but forgotten.

The depths below

The forces of Mother Hydra (Secrets of Arkham, 25) and Father Dagon (Core Set, 42) can count on the continued support of human worshippers in the form of The Cult of Bathos (Into Tartarus, 93). Not only are these cultists efficient combatants on their own, but these cultists offer the mighty Deep Ones their near mindless devotion. When they show their Innsmouth-look stricken faces, the horrible Deep Ones can’t be far off.

Cards offering cost reductions add flexibility to your use of domains, and with this cult on your side, you can enlist old favorites like Deep One Rising (Secrets of Arkham, 29) or Ravager from the Deep (Core Set, 46) faster than ever before.

The skies above

But the citizens of the sea aren’t the only ones benefitting from forays Into Tartarus. The nefarious Mi-Go also gain more control over the Earth. An ancient Mi-Go Skull (Into Tartarus, 100) turns anyone who wears it into a Mi-Go, granting the character any bonuses your other Mi-Go can provide. But this terrifying transformation’s not just a one-way street: Your newly Mi-Gofied character also gives back to the race, by providing Terror Icons to all Mi-Go, even the one just transmuted.

The combination of Terror icons that can prevent insanity and the Toughness provided by Ageless Mi-Go (Secrets of Arkham, 23) makes any character pretty resilient against a great number of strategies. And as a Mask, the Mi-Go Skull can even be sacrificed to trigger the ability of Carl Stanford (Secrets of Arkham, 28). At least, that is if he’s not too busy sacrificing the Bathos cultists.

Still, terror and sacrifice are just everyday parts of life in the world of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. The lives of cultists and investigators are often cruel and short, not infrequently ending in some kind of horrible fate, like being doomed to some prison underworld–like being cast Into Tartarus.

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Source: Going Deep Into Tartarus (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2913)