His cigarette case can be cashed in for a yellow die, which is helpful, but not as powerful as the red dice.ĭetective Joe Diamond has a clue. The Cultes des Goules and Nameless Cults are tomes that will each give him a red die. He’s brought along reading material and smokes. Archaeology doubles his reward whenever he earns special items. Monterey Jack - get it? - has the highest stamina in the game, making him the toughest fighter.

But Darrell also has the Lamp of Alhazred, which gives him a red die. Ashcan Pete manages a magical spell to fully heal himself you brought a snack. He’s brought along food, which will heal a single point of stamina.

His heal spell will fully restore his stamina.ĭarrell Simmons’ “hometown advantage” lets him improve some of his die rolls when he’s doing tasks. The King in Yellow is a tome that will give him a powerful red die when he uses it during an adventure. He begins my game with a shotgun, which he can use to turn any die roll into a peril result that’s good against monsters. Each character has a special ability as well as a randomly determined starting inventory.Īshcan Pete’s scrounge ability lets him finesse his rewards for beating an adventure. I predict some of these fellows will end up in the insane asylum before it’s all over. They each have high stamina and middling sanity. My randomly drawn party consists of some of the game’s hardier boys: Ashcan Pete the bum, Darrell Simmons the reporter, Monterey Jack the archaeologist/adventurer, and Joe Diamond the detective. Maybe I’ll have more luck this time with a random party. In all three games, the world was devoured. I’ve played three games, each with a hand-picked group of investigators. The overall goal is to accumulate 14 elder signs, which are rewards for beating some adventures, before you accumulate 12 doom tokens, which are penalties for failing some adventures, as well as occasional draws during the dreaded midnight phase. Then you roll the dice and see how she fares. For instance, Sister Mary the nun in the North Wing with the dynamite against the Medusa exhibit. It plays a bit like Clue, where you align several pieces on the board for one of the adventures, which consists of rolling dice and matching them to the adventure’s component tasks. This is basically a dice-based iPhone solitaire version of Arkham Horror (available here for $4). If you’ve played Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror cooperative boardgame, some of Elder Sign: Omens will be familiar to you.

Elder sign vs arkham horror