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Stories of Terror and Dark Discoveries

Announcing a Revised Secrets of Arkham for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

“Gilman came from Haverhill, but it was only after he had entered college in Arkham that he began to connect his mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. Something in the air of the hoary town worked obscurely on his imagination.”

    –H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House

The sleepy towns and quiet hillsides of H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional New England are full of hidden horrors. Strange forces compel some individuals to explore the oceanic depths beyond the coast of Innsmouth; others discover, with terror, frays in the fabric between our world and those unfathomable realms that lie beyond. Do you dare visit this forsaken landscape? Do you dare explore its darkest secrets?

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of a revised edition of the Secrets of Arkham deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game!

From the horrors of Dunwich to the shadow over Innsmouth, Secrets of Arkham introduces a ten-card story deck that provides a different play experience than the story deck from the Core Set, and its 150 player cards (three copies each of fifty different cards) explore the terrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional New England. You’ll find such classic elements of Lovecraft’s mythos as Professor Armitage (Secrets of Arkham, 12), The Necronomicon (Secrets of Arkham, 9), and Azathoth (Secrets of Arkham, 46), the gibbering Ancient One whose name no one dares speak aloud. Moreover, the deluxe expansion further develops such extraordinary threats as the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones.

What new strategies and deck ideas will you discover as you delve into the updated Secrets of Arkham?

Delving into Dark Secrets

Secrets of Arkham introduces a second story deck to Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, designed to offer different choices and a different experience than the stories from the Core Set. The ten stories in this story deck allude to many of the most important locations in H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional New England, and they recall such classic tales as The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, and The Colour Out of Space. Together, they provide a range of simple, yet powerful, effects that can each make a large impact on the game.

Additionally, the story deck features some effects centered around the game’s Day and Night keywords. First introduced in the Dreamlands series of Asylum Packs and heavily revisited in the Terror in Venice expansion, cards with the Day or Night keywords give additional shape to the struggles between the forces of light and those that prefer the dark.

The player cards in Secrets of Arkham add power and depth to each of the seven factions found in the game’s Core Set:

   
• The Agency focuses on providing more support for the Day keyword without losing their important, faction-defining connection to the combat struggle.

   
• Cthulhu casts its dark gaze on the Deep One subtype, and provides the deck with some much needed support, including the Ancient One, Hydra (Secrets of Arkham, 25).

   
• Hastur’s minions continue to excel at attacking their opponents’ minds, gaining more strength in the Terror struggle and effects like that of Infected by Madness (Secrets of Arkham, 41) that reward you for driving your opponent’s characters insane.

   
• The Professors and Investigators at Miskatonic University are turning the pages of some powerful Tomes and support cards.

   
• Shub-Niggurath brings a horde of Mi-Go and Dark Young to the table. Mi-Go Surgeon (Secrets of Arkham, 19), Mi-Go Commander (Secrets of Arkham, 20), and Ageless Mi-Go (Secrets of Arkham, 23) all make any Mi-Go in play significantly stronger, while the Rampaging Dark Young (Secrets of Arkham, 21) provides recursion when it leaves play.

   
• The masters of manipulation now have even more treachery at their disposal. Danny O’Bannion’s Syndicate gains an efficient way to exhaust any problematic characters with Intimidate (Secrets of Arkham, 16), and Forced Foreclosure (Secrets of Arkham, 15) provides them an easy way to take over opponent’s locations.

   
• Finally, Yog-Sothoth continues to transcend the boundaries of time and space with even more discard pile manipulation.

About the Revised Edition

This edition of Secrets of Arkham has been updated to include three copies of each player card, meaning that a single copy of the deluxe expansion now provides players with a complete play set.

Additionally, two of the expansion’s cards have been updated to incorporate the errata they received in the game’s official FAQ (pdf, 12.0 MB):

   
• The text of Poltergeist (Secrets of Arkham, 37) has been altered since its original release in order to more clearly indicate how it is meant to function in the game. This frightening Monster prevents players from restoring any of their insane characters during the refresh phase. However, the Poltergeist is an indiscriminate haunt, and any player can pay two resources to give control of the Poltergeist to his opponent, thereby ensuring that the Poltergeist works for him, rather than against him.

   
• Things in the Ground (Secrets of Arkham, 31) allows players to quickly spawn Monsters or other characters, even Ancient Ones, bringing them directly into play from the top of your deck, albeit insane. This powerful support long resided on the list of cards restricted within tournament play, but with its recent errata, Things in the Ground has since been removed from that list, meaning that you are now free to explore new strategies that take advantage of the terrifying creatures it can spawn in your games. Combined with a restricted card like Nyarlathotep (Journey to Unknown Kadath, 117) or Marcus Jamburg (Words of Power, 40), Things in the Ground may offer you the eldritch power you need to save the world… or devour it.

Countdown to Madness

The revised edition of Secrets of Arkham is due to arrive at retailers in the first quarter of 2014. Until then, keep checking our website for more information about this and other Call of Cthulhu expansions!

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Source: Stories of Terror and Dark Discoveries (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4553)