Diana Stanley Rises against the Mythos

Deck built to work as a 2 player deck with Preston Fairmont for The Circle Undone.

Currently half-way through the campaign, just completing

Contains some circle undone spoilers

Scenario 0. Prelude. Everything went wrong on the first draw from the bag. Stacked 4 cards in the first test to get rid of an Obscuring Fog, but drew auto-fail. It carried on getting worse, and we finished the prelude with only a couple of clues to show for it. The spectral watcher started this campaign ominously!

Scenario 1. At Death's Doorstep. After a quite incredible first scenario running through The Witching Hour, we managed to clear 5 Witch-Haunted Woods of clues, stop the ritual at Witches' Circle, as well as successfully Delving Too Deep twice. With the 1xp bonus from the scenario, we managed 10xp!

Scenario 2. The Secret Name. We’d been given a rubbish start by the prelude investigators, so had lots of clues to gather before doom advanced, but it all just worked out right in the end. Actually it helped the second half of the scenario, with a well timed Dark Insight to cancel the scenario advancing, and allowing time to hoover up the last three clues just in time, and get Arcane Initiate out just as doom was going to advance the agenda anyway! Delving too deep also worked well at the very end, (after Preston Resigned, so it didn't affect him!)

Scenario 3. The Witching Hour. Brown Jenkin did his usual tricks, and the old rat swarms proved stronger and tougher than we are used to! However, some great clue gathering by Preston early on led to Diana and Preston going a little mad and thinking they'd finished, when they had not. Early mistakes allowing doom to advance early (playing a second Arcane Initiate at the wrong time; Delving Too Deep half way through a scenario and then advancing the act when you aren't ready should have been a recipe for disaster. It wasn't so much about carrying on to see if we could win the day, but seeing if we could be defeated in the least worst manner! However, Diana and Preston turned their fortunes around, edging themselves (sorry I can't think of a better word) on the brink of the doom threshold for the last 3 or 4 turns while they uncovered the last clues and successfully spoiled a certain ritual. Preston did a remarkable job with 4 all-or-nothing evades, and fortunately for those tests, auto-fail stayed away! Brown Jenkin's effects ended up being a fantastic opportunity for Diana to cycle through her whole deck to find some Scene of the Crime and Drawn to the Flame cards (I think Diana worked out how Brown Jenkin was helping with the ritual, and used that understanding to disrupt things). Deny Existence once again proving exceptional, as Brown Jenkin's effects were not only nullified, but used to add masses of extra cards to Diana's hand (ignoring the cards discarded from hand, but keeping the "draw the same number of cards" effect, as if it was the 5XP upgraded version) It turns out that if Diana is only looking for those auto-clue finding events, she really doesn't mind losing all her will-boosting cards to Terrible Secret, so if it comes up twice in as many goes, she really doesn't care!

Scenario 4. The Wages of Sin So, following the news reports of ghostly sightings, Preston Fairmont and Diana Stanley went to the old Hangman's hill. It seems that a variety of spirits were affecting the investigators in many different ways that night, which finished at the stroke of two o'clock, with both investigators on the brink of insanity. Preston and Diana made some progress early, but each clue felt hard-won. With few good opportunities for Diana to cancel or ignore effects, she was stalling a little at the beginning. But Dayana Esperence paired up with an upgraded Ward of Protection, was very useful at protecting Preston. A few clues later, and they were parlaying with the Heretics revealing each of them to have wandered far from their resting places. Eventually Preston managed to survive an encounter with a Heretic and bring one with him so that Diana could put her to rest in the right location. The Spectral Watcher soon arrived and suddenly everything became more difficult, Diana and Preston realising that they didn't have time to find out everything they wanted to, so they concentrated on one final Heretic (also investigating some of the interesting locations in order to gain some insights into the mythos.) It all happened very quickly at the end, with the hour drawing very late, the Spectral Watcher cornered a mentally and physically exhausted Diana. Preston managed to engage the Watcher to allow Diana to make it back to Hangman's Brook; and in a final (busy) turn, Preston Eluded the Watcher and left. Diana managed to do one of her favourite tricks of pausing to consider all that she had learned of the Mythos just before leaving. Both Preston and Diana were very close to defeat, but survived this time. It turned out that Preston had a nasty surprise from the Lodge as he was leaving. Maybe someone in the Lodge knows we are deceiving them? or maybe Preston has been bankrolling this investigation a little beyond his means?