The unquiet dead have called out, and Jim Culver has answered. We are pleased to reintroduce Jim Culver to Arkham Horror: The Card Game, this time in his parallel form! Read on to learn more.

Laid To Rest

One of the earliest investigators in Arkham Horror: The Card Game returns with a similar emphasis on token manipulation and play; the cursed musician, however, has gained deeper insight into the mysteries of the mythos. By revealing a curse or skull token, Jim Culver (Parallel Investigators, 49) can replenish a charge on one of his Spell or Ritual assets. With enough support for curse or token manipulation built into his deck, Jim can keep spells like Shrivelling (Revised Core Set, 60) or forbidden relics such as Grotesque Statue (Jacqueline Fine Investigator Starter Deck, 21) topped off!

This power comes at a price, however. Flooding the chaos bag with curse tokens carries its own inherent risk, and if Jim doesn’t arm himself with cards such as Armageddon (In Too Deep, 117) or Dark Ritual (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 26), he may find the powers of the beyond are too great to control!

While Jim’s new deckbuilding options remove greater access to Mystic cards (he now can only include Mystic cards level 0-3), he gains expanded access to Spell and Cursed cards. With access to a full suite of Cursed cards across many different classes, this version of Jim Culver knows how to harness the forces of the other side to even greater effect!

All of this is also complemented by Jim’s new advanced signature cards. The advanced Jim’s Trumpet (Parallel Investigators, 50) offers a powerful healing effect to each investigator and Ally asset at his location or a connecting location, while the advanced Final Rhapsody (Parallel Investigators, 51) provides even greater threat to Jim’s health and sanity when drawn.

The Beyond

Investigators who choose to take the back of Parallel Jim also gain newfound access to a host of ghostly apparitions. With the new double-sided The Beyond (Parallel Investigators, 52) permanent, Jim Culver can build a deck of 10 different ghostly allies. At the start of each turn, a new spectral companion emerges from Jim’s spirit deck to aid the musician in his investigations. When 4 or more spirits have emerged, Jim must flip the Beyond and resolve its forced effect, which may bring more spirits out or send them (and hopefully not Jim!) into the afterlife.

These spirits can aid Jim greatly with their unique abilities, but look out for the Vengeful Shade (Parallel Investigators, 53) lurking in the spirit deck, as it can quickly drive Jim to the brink of madness.

Ghost Hunting

The Beyond and the Spirit deck are an essential part of Jim’s parallel scenario, “Laid to Rest.” Called to Hangman’s Hill on the word of medium Jean Devereaux, Jim Culver must lay the weary souls of the lost to rest as he searches for his father’s spirit. During his search, Jim must follow Jean Devereaux (Parallel Investigators, 57a) to sites of spiritual disturbance and draw Heretics out of The Beyond to fulfill their last requests. Players will need to own a copy of both the Core Set and The Circle Undone Campaign Expansion to use the Wages of Sin and other encounter sets. Unlike in Wages of Sin, however, the true enemy is not the Spectral Watcher, but the Ravenous Spirits (Parallel Investigators, 58) who lie in wait to thwart Jim and Jean’s endeavors.

How many spirits will you lay to rest? Only time will tell. With a challenging new parallel scenario and a suite of new deckbuilding options, we hope you’ll check out the new parallel Jim Culver (24 MB) and his accompanying rules insert (6.3 MB) today!

Good luck, and stay spooky!

Josiah “Duke” Harrist