Norman "Clue Magnet" Withers

Norman "Clue Magnet" Withers

This is a Norman build originally designed for multiplayer campaigns, specifically 3 or 4 player runs. This deck hyper-prioritizes Investigation of Clues as well as strongly leaning into the and stats for checks. We expect our teammates to handle the majority of combat as well and checks, as Norman will be poor at both of those.

Campaign-Specific Notes

The sole reason we take In the Thick of It is to get Astronomical Atlas early. For high-XP campaigns, such as Edge of the Earth, it is not recommended to take In the Thick of It since it's a waste of both a card slot and two trauma.

Intro and Key Concepts

The crux of this build is centered around Norman's ability to stack cards in his favor to hoover up clues from all around the board. To do so, we're a going to be running a powerful mix of three cards:

• Written in the Stars is great way for us to combo one of our Skills, such as Perception, onto multiple Investigates in one round. Because we always know the top card of our deck, there's no guesswork involved in making sure Written in the Stars is used on a valuable card. This further combos with Testing Sprint, which allows us to apply the Skill to multiple Investigations using just 1 single action.
• Astronomical Atlas is our bread-and-butter card. It's a great way to make sure we get to use a great Skill twice since we can pull it off the top of the deck, commit it to a test, and then reuse it from our hand afterwards.
• Livre d'Eibon can be used in two ways, either to set up Astronomical Atlas or Written in the Stars, or to use a more situational Skill (such as True Understanding) without having to take an action to draw it first.

With these three cards, we'll be constantly manipulating and planning around the top card of our deck, giving us a lot of options in how we approach our turns depending on the card shown.

The rest of our deck is generally centered around a couple of core concepts.

1. Searching Out our Assets

Having the right Assets (and later on Spells) is absolutely critical for this build. Research Librarian and Whitton Greene are both in our deck to help us find Astronomical Atlas and/or Livre d'Eibon. We bring along Backpack to help us find St. Hubert's Key, Fingerprint Kit, and Emergency Cache. As a bonus to all our Searching, we're bring along 2 copies of Astounding Revelation which we hope we can trigger for some bonus Resources.

2. Resource Gathering

Norman has quite a few very expensive cards, and as we get XP we'll be getting more expensive cards. As such, we need to make sure we can actually generate all the resources required. We have the aforementioned Astounding Revelations and Emergency Cache already. We're also bringing along a few cards that combo well with our Investigate action: Burning the Midnight Oil which gives us 2 free resources along with an Investigate action (double benefit!) and Crack the Case which we can use when clearing high Shroud locations to get resources.

3. Card Draws

Many of Norman's best cards are situational, but very very powerful when used at the right time. Forced Learning helps us mill through our deck faster so we can get access to those crucial cards sooner. Written in the Stars used on Perception can get us 2 and a card draw across multiple Investigate actions in one round. Empirical Hypothesis combos off our naturally high — as we should often be succeeding by 3+ on Investigation checks — to allow us to draw extra cards on our turn. This is complemented by Cryptic Writings (and later on Winds of Power), to allow us to play these cards without having to spend an action.

4. Handling Incidental Situations

While we're highly focused on getting Clues, we don't want Norman to be completely helpless either. So we're bringing a couple of cards to get him out of different situations.

• Occult Lexicon is a fantastic utility card for us. Blood-Rite is a triple-useful card for us, letting us draw cards, and trading those cards for Resources or to deal damage to enemies without provoke.
• "I've got a plan!" and Spectral Razor both give Norman the ability to do some significant damage. "Throw the Book at Them!" is useful to finish off a low HP enemy and get a free activation on Astronomical Atlas, or to automatically evade a tougher enemy so you can GTFO.
• We run one copy of Bizarre Diagnosis and Logical Reasoning to give us some emergency healing capabilities.

5. Prepping for Divination

At some point, we're going to switch to Divination as our primary Investigating tool, and we have two cards in our deck that aren't all that useful right now, but will become more useful once we get Divination.

• Mortar and Pestle at the start is only really useful for Spectral Razor, but will be used to help reduce costs later on.
• Enraptured is used for Fingerprint Kit at the start, but can later be used for Divination once we get that. This can combo with Written in the Stars to replenish multiple charges over a round.

General Gameplay Flow

Norman's gameplay strategy is relatively straightforward.

In the early game, Norman is trying to search out his key cards (Astronomical Atlas, Divination, Livre d'Eibon, Fingerprint Kit). Along they way, Norman should attempt to nab a couple of clues and stock up on Resources.

Once Norman has at least one Asset to help him Investigate and pick up multiple clues, he should change focus on setting up big combos whenever possible using the flexibility he has to store cards from Astronomical Atlas, or to place cards on top of his deck using Livre d'Eibon.

A couple common synergies to look out for:

• Using Written in the Stars to set up Deduction, Perception, or Enraptured; then using Testing Sprint to test multiple adjacent areas, nabbing multiple clues, cards, or charges (when using Divination), respectively.
• When picking up a clue from an area with a high Shroud value, playing both Connect the Dots for an additional 2 clue pickups and Crack the Case to recover some Resources. Bonus synergy if you can use Burning the Midnight Oil to do the Investigate to get yourself an additional 2 Resources.
• It's good to keep an Evidence on Empirical Hypothesis. If you ever see Cryptic Writings or Winds of Power on top of your deck (or you can use Livre d'Eibon to put one from you hand onto the deck), you can trigger a card draw and immediately play the card using only actions. If you happen to have Prophetic played as well, you can use it to pay for Winds of Power too!
• Norman can also pack quite a punch! Once he has a few clues, "I've got a plan!" can be used to deal up to 4 damage on an attack, and Spectral Razor up to 3 damage. Finally, we have Blood-Rite cards from our Occult Lexicon as a backup as well. Norman isn't going to be the primary combatant, but he can certainly hand out some punishment in a pinch.

Leveling Up Our Deck

As we get XP, this is roughly the order we should be spending it. Depending on the campaign, you might need to make adjustments as you see fit.

1. If we didn't take In the Thick of It at the start, our first 3 XP needs to be spent on Astronomical Atlas.
2. Divination (1 or 4) → Arcane Enlightenment should be our next pickup. We want to get to the 4XP version of this card ASAP as picking up 3 clues from one single Investigate action is incredibly powerful. This is also when we'll start to see Mortar and Pestle and Enraptured become more useful.
3. Word of Command (2) → True Understanding. We want another way to search out Divination since it is so important to us. We're getting rid of a copy of True Understanding, a much more situationally useful card.
4. Prophetic (3) → Mortar and Pestle is the next upgrade. Not only is it a better version of Mortar and Pestle, but it can also be used to empower the search action from Divination.
5. Blur (1) → "Throw the Book at Them!". Either the 1 or 4 XP version of this card is fine. This card is basically a strict upgrade of "Throw the Book at Them!" since it allows us to Evade, but also gives us an additional action.
6. Divination (4) → Emergency Cache. With Prophetic in play, we're going to be slightly less Resource hungry in the long run and can afford to drop a Resource card.
7. Enraptured (0 → 2) x2 is a straightforward upgrade. More Charges replenished which work on both Blur and Divination.
8. Word of Command (2) → Arcane Enlightenment. Since we have Blur now, we can add another Word of Command to also Search that card out.
9. Blur (1 → 4) if you didn't upgrade to Blur (4) yet, now's the time to do so.
10. Winds of Power (1) x 2 → Fingerprint Kit & Astounding Diagnosis. More Secrets replenishment for our Arcane Spells.

There are also some campaigns that don't necessarily need a ton of clues to be Investigated, or have other gimmicks that makes it unnecessary to go so heavy into Divination. In the event you don't need some of the "critical" cards above, then these are some good alternatives.

1. Spiritual Echo. Some campaigns just have a lot of very linear or disjointed maps that don't behoove having Testing Sprint. In that case, you can replace Testing Sprint with Spiritual Echo for a similar combo.
2. Earthly Serenity. If you don't find yourself needing Blur all that often, then this is a great alternative. Not only does it replace Bizarre Diagnosis and Logical Reasoning, allowing you to free up an additional card slot, it's also rechargeable via Enraptured and Winds of Power.
3. Brand of Cthugha. On the flip side, if you find yourself needing to be in combat a lot more, then swapping out Blur for Brand of Cthugha is a solid way to have a consistent damage Spell. Additionally, it's charges are replenishable and can also combo with Spiritual Echo.
4. Jewel of Aureolus. If you don't like managing Empirical Hypothesis, then Jewel of Aureolus is a great alternative to both that and St. Hubert's Key. With how often you're pulling from the Chaos bag to Investigate, it's pretty likely you can get a good amount of cards/resources from Jewel throughout the course of a campaign.

Any additional upgrades, if you somehow have more XP, will be left to the reader to figure out based on the needs of the campaign party.