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Seekers of Knowledge

Announcing an Upcoming Deluxe Expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

Of our studies it is impossible to speak, since they held so slight a connexion with anything of the world as living men conceive it. They were of that vaster and more appalling universe of dim entity and consciousness which lies deeper than matter, time, and space, and whose existence we suspect only in certain forms of sleep—those rare dreams beyond dreams which come never to common men, and but once or twice in the lifetime of imaginative men.

    –H.P. Lovecraft, Hypnos

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Seekers of Knowledge, a deluxe expansion with a strong focus on Miskatonic University and the first release in a new distribution model for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Dedicated to the daring faculty, scientists, investigators, and explorers of Miskatonic University, Seekers of Knowledge and its 165 cards (three copies each of fifty-five individual cards) provide a significant boost to the hopes of humanity.

At the seams of reality, the Ancient Ones wait. While the stars retain their alignment, they slumber and reside outside of human reality, but the stars will someday shift. The Ancient Ones will stir, and humanity will be reduced to ashes and ruin…unless the heroic students and faculty of Miskatonic University can make sense of the prophecies they uncover and find a way to drive back the Ancient Ones’ servitors, to drive back the mad cultists who seek power through service to the elder gods, and to ward the world from terrors undreamt by the masses.

In the face of these challenges, Miskatonic University has recruited an all-star cast in Seekers of Knowledge.

Higher Education

Seekers of Knowledge populates the hallowed halls of Miskatonic University with nineteen different characters committed to the merits of higher education, the application of science, and a little dabbling in stranger and darker knowledge.

For some time, the Miskatonic “nerds” (as players affectionately dub them) have been reduced to a supporting role in most decks. However, the new rush of Scientists, Investigators, Students, and Faculty from Seekers of Knowledge gives Miskatonic players new tools to revisit old strategies, and it goes farther afield as a wealth of new Explorers, like Roald Ellsworth (Seekers of Knowledge, 4), scour the remotest areas of the globe for kernels of truth hidden at the cores of old legends. In their journeys, these Explorers uncover the secrets of abandoned cities and lost civilizations, unearthing new Tomes and Rituals.

The host of new Miskatonic characters provides the faction dynamic new life in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Many of the characters work well together, gaining greater efficiency the more of their allies enter play. Other cards provide Miskatonic University players reasons to focus solely upon the heroic investigators, rather than pairing them up with another faction and compromising their ideals. Altogether, Seekers of Knowledge looks to sound the bell upon a brand new school year full of optimism.

Portents and Prophecies

Even as the students and faculty of Miskatonic University prepare to resume classes, people around the world catch fragments of strange and ominous prophecies. Seekers of Knowledge brings these Prophecies to the game, and each faction gets one. Prophecies are events, like Hanyatl’s 12:3 (Seekers of Knowledge, 52), that play faceup to the top of your deck during the draw phase and provide beneficial effects once you “decode” them (meeting their triggering conditions).

Because each of the game’s initial Prophecies can be readily decoded by their corresponding factions, players will gain new measures of control over the timing of their actions. As events, Prophecies are harder to erase than the game’s support cards or characters, and they can lead to interesting mind games as your opponent will know you intend to trigger your Prophecy at some point. After all, it has been pre-ordained. Only two questions remain. The first: when will you use its action?

The second, and greater, question is this: why each faction only has a fragment of the whole? What do these ominous new prophecies signify?

The Most Ancient

It is possible the prophecies relate information about the coming of new Ancient Ones, for the arrival of such elder beings must truly be worthy of legend.

If it’s true that the prophecies relate to a time of the Ancient Ones, then the time of which they speak may be imminent. Seekers of Knowledge introduces powerful new characters to each faction, including five new Ancient Ones, each arriving with its own, unfathomable purpose. These terrifying powers and their Servitors represent a diverse set of inscrutable, inhuman interests. Each can easily supplement existing strategies or serve as the centerpieces of fantastic new deck designs, and the mere emergence of such unfathomable entities is certain to send ripples of anxiety and excitement through the followers of Cthulhu, Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth.

A New Direction

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game has gone through many evolutions since its initial release as a collectible card game in 2004 and its transition to the versatile Living Card Game™ (LCG) format in 2008. Along the way, we released two deluxe expansions, Secrets of Arkham and The Order of the Silver Twilight, the second of which focused heavily upon the introduction of the game’s eighth faction, the Order of the Silver Twilight.

Seekers of Knowledge will be more than another deluxe expansion; it will be the first in a new release model for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. The game will shift away from monthly Asylum Packs to the release of a deluxe expansion (each with 165 cards) once every four months.

We believe this is the best way forward with this particular line as it makes the game more accessible to new players helping it grow, as well as still delivering a deep and immersive experience for veteran players. However, there are no plans to apply this change to any other LCG.

Some of the these upcoming deluxe expansions will focus on a particular faction, while others will focus on themes from the mythos. Creatively, both offer exciting avenues for us to explore, and we are confident you will agree when you see the results.

Head to the Front of the Class

Seekers of Knowledge is scheduled to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2012. The arrival of this deluxe expansion will mark a new beginning for Miskatonic University and all humanity in its desperate struggle for continued existence in a world threatened by the unimaginable powers of the Ancient Ones.

Pack up your pens and pencils. Grab your rulers and textbooks. With the exciting strategies from Seekers of Knowledge, Miskatonic University is now open for enrollment!

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Source: Seekers of Knowledge (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3406)