Dawn Star

Event

Ritual. Blessed.

Cost: 1. XP: 1.

Neutral

Fast. Play after revealing chaos tokens during a skill test at your location.

Ignore the modifiers of each token revealed during this test. For each token ignored, deal 1 damage to an enemy at your location.

Only the strongest spirit can sunder the dark.
Edgar Sánchez Hidalgo
The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion #131.
Dawn Star

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: Trying to figure out how Dawn Star is used in the game. 1. Does the card’s play instructions “Play after revealing chaos tokens during a skill test at your location.” mean “play after you reveal all chaos tokens for this skill test”? In other words, until I can't reveal the new chaos token? Or, "Play after revealing any chaos token during a skill test at your location."? 2. Does "Ignore the modifiers of each curse token revealed during this test" mean "Ignore the modifiers of each curse token that was revealed during this test"? Is "Ignore the modifiers of each curse token revealed during this test" a lasting effect? If it is "Play after revealing any chaos token during a skill test at your location.", then after Dawn Star is played, can I still ignore the modifiers when I reveal a new curse token? 3. Does "For each curse token ignored, deal 1 damage to an enemy at your location." mean "For each of those curse token modifiers ignored, deal 1 damage to an enemy at your location."? According to the “For each”or“for every”rule (2.23), it should be immediately resolved as a single cumulative effect? If it is "Play after revealing any chaos token during a skill test at your location.", then after Dawn Star is played, can I still deal damage if I reveal a new curse token? 4. If it is "play after you reveal all chaos tokens for this skill test", then assuming there is no reveal curse token during a skill test, can I still play Dawn Star? Could it be that it cannot be played because its effect does not have the potential to change the game state? 5. If I trigger Rod of Carnamagos during a skill test, assuming that after resolving the effect of "Reveal 5 random chaos tokens from the chaos bag", I reveal the curse token, can I play Dawn Star? If so, based on your ruling: "If you trigger Rod of Carnamagos during a skill test, you do not resolve the effects of the tokens it reveals" In other words, any tokens revealed by Rod of Carnamagos have no modifiers, Does this mean I can't deal damage to the enemy? A: To answer your question(s):
    1. You are intended to play Dawn Star at the very end of Step 3 of a skill test, immediately after you’ve revealed all of the tokens for that test.
    2. Dawn Star does not create a lasting effect.
    3. Yes, each curse token modifier ignored by Dawn Star’s effect translates to 1 damage that you deal to an enemy, and you deal that damage immediately. If you somehow reveal more curse tokens during that test after you play Dawn Star, you don’t deal any damage at that time.
    4. No; if you don’t reveal any tokens during a test, you don’t play Dawn Star.
    5. No, you can’t play Dawn Star after revealing tokens with Rod of Carnamagos. The tokens that Rod reveals aren’t resolved, so you can’t ignore their modifiers, and there is no way you can change the game state by playing Dawn Star at that time. (Rules Forum Answer, June 2024)
Last updated

Reviews

Stupidly powerful, low XP, and Neutral. This one here is an instant Curse staple.

The key here that puts Dawn Star and Diabolical Luck above its ilk such as Skeptic or Fey is that you play it after the tokens have been revealed, meaning you can go into a test with this sitting in your hand, knowing you've got the Star to bail you out... or not if you don't need it! Never fear spending your big Skill card to accidentally beat a check by 7 when you pull the . Dawn Star only needs to be used when it will change the outcome.

Of course, Dawn Star also pays you off for hitting curses with inconsistent but testless damage, so there may be situations where you want to stack the odds to make sure you have as cursed a draw as possible. Beyond filling up the bag with , we have some extra tools for this:

Cards that get you a lot of curses at once:


Favor of the Moon is fantastic as always. I like to wait to draw one curse naturally, then use Favor to follow it up so I get at least 2 hits guaranteed.★★★★
Premonition depends on what you seal but a bag-shenanigans deck can always make this one work.★
Olive McBride and her glow-up get you more choice AND an extra token, repeatably.★★★★★
Nkosi Mabati can mill ,, symbols into a for increased density.★★
Unrelenting can also artificially deflate the bag of non- tokens (and draw you some cards!)★★★

While we're here, it's worth mentioning that there are other complementary cards that pay you for revealing a lot of tokens at once.

Other cards that want to reveal as many curses as possible in one go:


Voice of Ra
Armageddon (4)
Eye of Chaos (4)
Rod of Carnamagos (2)
Shroud of Shadows (4)
Gaze of Ouraxsh
Tristan Botley
Henry Wan... but you ain't crazy enough for that... or are you?

The best part, of course, is that there's really no way to lose! As long as there are Curses going around, Dawn Star is going to save your ass, on the cheap, in rich style, with a little cherry on top. Enjoy!

Edit: Note that the lower list of cards cannot all make use of Dawn Star directly since the card specifies it is played after revealing tokens during a skill test (thanks to Valentin1331). They do all play well with a Curse-heavy deck and so likely slot in with the Star.

Miskatonic_Community_College · 24
Hey Mr Asscan, great feedback. Just one thing, in the end you mention a few cards. Unfortunately Dawn Star mentions « during a skill test » so cards like Gaze, Voice of Ra, Henry, or probably the strongest (21 or burst since you can simply decide to not stop when you burst) do not work here. For Rod, we are still waiting for a confirmation. And finsally, how could you review this card without mentioning this mind blowing art?!! — Valentin1331 · 74986
It's also pretty good on Diana for her ability, where even a curse ignored makes that card extremely worthwhile. — mugu · 234
@Valentin1331 concerning the interaction with Rod I'd say theres no modifier to ignore on the rod-fished curses (since they are not pulled in the context of a skill test they have no value and no modifier) so they dont count for the "For each curse ignored" clause. I could be wrong though — drfrigof · 1