Asset. Hand

Item. Tome.

Cost: 4. XP: 3.

Mystic

You have 1 additional arcane slot.

Exhaust Book of Shadows: Add 1 charge to a Spell asset you control.

Dimitri Bielak
Core Set #70.
Book of Shadows

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

As of Core + Dunwich through Undimensioned and Unseen this card simply doesn't seem to have a place. 'Add charges to spells' seems like a solid concept, but this card unlike any other in the game is demanding in money, actions AND slots. Money and hand-slot could perhaps be forgiven, but the sheer number of actions required in order to make this card useful are insane. It's 4r + 2 actions + 1 hand to refresh your Shriveling or RotS once.

The card seemingly is meant to bend towards 'hardcore casters' who want more than two spells and want to cast them all a lot, but by the time you've bought this AND three other spells AND burnt one of those spells of it's charges the game had better well be over or you're probably not going to win. You're better off just overwriting one of your original two spells with the third that you need right now. Now, of course, we do have a character who can use Tome actions for free and uses spells! Ah but wait Daisy Walker is a Seeker, and as such doesn't have access to this card outside of Jim teamwork shenanigans...

It's just a huge miss. Maybe one day we'll have someone who can use certain charged spells without using actions, and when that happens this card will probably still be trash tier. It simply is too far removed from viable play in resource cost, action efficiency, and intended function for it to be worth even the deck slot, let alone 3 exp.

The one thing that might change my mind is if in the future we see a big expensive spell with a single, or limited, charges much the way that Shotgun is mad expensive but also dependent on Extra Ammunition

Difrakt · 1282
I think this card is practically made for Akachi Onyele and I will be getting it we survive the next scenario in our campaign. — Panzerbjrn · 19
I feel like this card is created to support a very specific build revolving around Scrying, Shrivelling, and Mists of R'lyeh. This card will easily support all three, and Norman Withers is a superb clue-getter/support figure with this as a foundation. Honestly, so long as Norman has a partner who can reliably defeat enemies, he should be worrying about anything other than controlling the encounter deck and gathering clues. Anything else he does is just gravy. Book of Shadows doesn't only not suck for this purpose, it's essential. — crymoricus · 246
Yeah, I've been playing hardcore with Marie and Book for a couple days, and this thing is definitely for Marie more than any other investigator, because it's basically a free action with doom out, so long as you're using the charges. Everything in the arcane slots beats everything in the hand slots for Marie, too. — crymoricus · 246
Is anyone else willing to house rule that — Stigles · 1
Can be used to pump charges into Seal of the Seventh Sign, which is quite strong, and even provides the extra slot for it. Am xp-intensive combo to be sure, but quite strong. — SGPrometheus · 809

I have never used this card, and I don't think I ever will. Even back when this came out in the original core set, my attitude was always that I would rather just play another copy of my important spell, especially because if you don't have spells to recharge, this will just sit on the table and do nothing. Deep down inside, though, ever since I first saw this in the core set, I've had a tiny hope that maybe, someday, a spell will come out that will make me want to pay 4 resources and 3 xp to recharge and keep in play alongside two other spells; but to this day, almost 8 years later, this hope has yet to become reality.

There are 3 tomes that Parallel Daisy back has access to that Standard Daisy back does not: Grimm's Fairy Tales, Scroll of Prophecy (3) (Mystic), and Book of Shadows (3). Of those three, Book of Shadows is by far the most interesting. Parallel Daisy back has access to the Archaic Glyphs spells, which use charges, rather than secrets (and so can't be recharged with Astounding Revelation). Book of Shadows could conceivably guarantee a use of Guiding Stones every turn, which is pretty strong. Where this starts to get really exciting, in my opinion, is with the upcoming Astronomical Atlas, which allows you to commit the top card of your deck to a skill test and add it to your hand if you succeed. Add in Practice Makes Perfect and you're well on your way to big commit Daisy deck that can just scoop up mountains of clues very consistently on higher player counts.

Graham · 111
Book of Psalms, too, which is less interesting but opens up some minor bless build possibilities. — SSW · 209
So what are the other two cards besides Glyphes, Daisy want to slot into her arcane slots. Because just to recharge her Glyphs, any Daisy could take level 1. Sure from the second use on, this card let you save a resource, but without any use for the additional slot, this seems like a waste of XP to me. Sure, you could get the hand slot back with "Arcane Enlightment", but that makes the build even slower and more expensive. "Dream Enhancing Serum" might be an option, but one you want only one copy in play of. I agree, it looks better than the other new options for Parallel Daisy, but it has to compete with the old options, any Daisy can take, too. And there are a lot more nowadays. — Susumu · 366
@susumu Daisy takes Dream-Enhancing Serum if you haven't got tired of degenerated seekers. — Tzolkin1065 · 155
The hand slot also comes back with Astral Mirror. — AlderSign · 265