The Miskatonic Museum
Announcing the First Mythos Pack in The Dunwich Legacy
"Almost eight feet tall, and carrying a cheap new valise from Osborn’s general store, this dark and goatish gargoyle appeared one day in Arkham in quest of the dreaded volume kept under lock and key at the college library—the hideous Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred in Olaus Wormius’ Latin version."
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of The Miskatonic Museum, the first Mythos Pack in The Dunwich Legacy cycle for Arkham Horror: The Card Game!
It begins with a book… Somewhere in the Miskatonic Museum, Olaus Wormius’s Latin translation of a book called the Necronomicon lies hidden away, kept locked and secret so that those individuals who shouldn't gain access to it do not. When recent events at the university and the Clover Club lead you to believe that someone may now be searching for this strange and ancient tome—someone who should not be permitted to delve its secrets—you make your way to the Museum. The hour is late, and the front door is locked. But you know you must recover the book before anyone can access its arcane secrets for dark purposes.
The cards and adventure from The Miskatonic Museum grant you access to the Museum and its many exhibitions. Whether you conduct your investigation as a relatively simple book recovery or incorporate it into the campaign from The Dunwich Legacy, you'll find it marked by a frightening urgency. You aren't alone within the museum's darkened chambers; something else stalks the exhibits…
Artifacts on Display
The Miskatonic Museum offers plenty more than a book hunt, and as you navigate its halls in search of the dread Necronomicon, you may find yourself tempted in plenty of other directions.
The Miskatonic Museum contains twenty-six player cards, ranging from levels zero to two, and their secrets may help you unlock new Talents and Tactics. They may afford you new Insights, or you might equip them as Tools. Altogether, you'll find that artifacts on display in The Miskatonic Museum suggest plenty of ways to spend the experience points you accrue over the course of your The Dunwich Legacy campaign.
Some of these cards will even adjust the ways you gain and spend your experience, making them quite unusual in the realm of customizable card games.
Exhibit: Adaptable
Among the other things we find on display in The Miskatonic Museum is the first card in Arkham Horror: The Card Game with the Permanent keyword. Unlike most keywords, Permanent has no impact on gameplay. Instead, it's a special deckbuilding keyword with a set of abilities outlined in the game's rules:
- A card with the permanent keyword does not count towards your deck size.
- A card with the permanent keyword still counts as being part of your deck and must therefore adhere to all other deckbuilding restrictions.
- A card with the permanent keyword starts each game in play and is not shuffled into your investigator deck during setup.
- A card with the permanent keyword cannot be discarded by any means.
Accordingly, an experience point investment in the Permanent Talent Adaptable (The Miskatonic Museum, 110) is just what it sounds like—an investment in your investigator's ability to adapt to the mysteries he or she uncovers over the course of a campaign. And given how much the card may allow you to adapt your deck to the challenges you could never predict at the campaign's outset, you'd be wise to consider Adaptable among your very first acquisitions once you have a point or two of experience in hand.
Exhibit: Delve Too Deep
While Adaptable suits the Rogue class as a card built around exploiting every available resource, one of the Mystic cards from The Miskatonic Museum serves to exemplify the high-risk and high-reward focus of the class as well as any other.
Offering what may very well be the most purely detrimental game effect ever printed on a player card, Delve Too Deep (The Miskatonic Museum, 111) "allows" you and your fellow investigators to draw and resolve one card each from the top of the encounter deck. More or less, this event costs you one resource to play and then gives the encounter deck another turn to rip at your body and melt your mind.
So why would you ever want to play this card? The answer is printed in bold at the bottom center of the text box—below the flavor text. "Victory 1."
Once you play it, the card is worth a point of experience that you can then invest toward other cards. Sure, you have to survive all the nasty effects you and your fellow investigators invoke when you Delve Too Deep, but this is the world of Arkham Horror… Madness is par for the course, and since there's no guarantee you'll go mad just for playing the card (nor be devoured), why wouldn't you want more experience? After all, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger—right?
Not Your Ordinary Museum
With cards like Adaptable and Delve Too Deep that explore the effects between your games—rather than within them—Arkham Horror: The Card Game is leading you to places you will have never previously explored within customizable card games. It's half card gaming and half roleplaying, and it's all moving toward something deeper, darker, more profound, and more horrifying than you could have ever imagined…
What lies within the halls of The Miskatonic Museum? This first Mythos Pack in The Dunwich Legacy cycle is scheduled for retail release in the first quarter of 2017!