I'm a little surprised that this never caught a review!

This card is -somewhat- nasty. -1 to all skills definitely sucks no matter who you are. But despite how evenly applied this looks, it definitely hits some investigators harder than others.

Investigators that don't mind this: -Investigators that are hyper focused on boosting and using one stat can potentially ignore this, at least until it's convenient to deal with. -Investigators that can reliably get extra actions have more room to clear it and not lose most of their turn. -Investigators that can do things without tests.

Investigators that do -not- like this.: -Investigators that rely on multiple stats (especially if they have add X stat to your stat for this test cards) get it way worse. They can't reliably stack their stats high enough to negate the haunted -1. -Investigators that don't have good action compression or extra actions will (as with any double action weakness) have less of a good time with this as well.

It's not the worst weakness in the world, but it's sure messing me up sometimes. And ultimately, a -1 to all stats will affect almost any investigator, unlike some of the more recent basic weaknesses that might as well barely be a weakness if you're the right investigator.

This card is an absolute powerhouse thanks to the Taboo list. The synergy it has with Blood Pact and Sin-Eater is downright absurd.

You can boost yourself with Blood Pact, place the first offering on Blood of Thoth, then activate Sin-Eater to capture the doom, which immediately triggers Blood of Thoth again.

The result is that you can consistently gain an additional action every single turn, and that action can be used either by yourself or even given to a teammate.

Might be kind of niche but I am building a Kymani Jones deck with this, Chuck Fergus and Bum's Rush. With the starting 5 xp you can take 2x Chuck and 3x Doppelgänger. For 4 resources and no action (or 2 resources and an action) you can discard any non-elite enemy by playing this in your room then Bum's Rush to push them out and trigger the second evade (you have to succeed 2 evades at 7 skill, but that's not too difficult and the 1 damage from Bum's Rush reduces the difficulty of Kymani's discard evade test). If you fail the first evade you still move them and get a second chance to evade from Doppelgänger.

Can also work nicely with "Where's the party?" to discard non-elites from the encounter deck. Drop a doppel in room, spawn an exhausted enemy and then evade them instantly to discard. 2 resources and an action, with Chuck able to reduce either the resources or actions needed to 0.

It's not overpowered by any means, but it is pretty neat that both of the crucial cards (Chuck is luxury here really) come from the same set, which matters as I have moved on to playing limited environment for extra challenge.

• This card can prevent Knife from being discarded.
• This card can let you use all Sled Dogs twice during your turn.
• This card makes The Council's Coffer's daunting test actionless.
• This card can let you use Timeworn Brand's string attack without exhausting or ignore the weaker attack's condition.
• This card can let you use Blur/Blur without charges.
• This card can gain you 1 resource without adding curses via Scrimshaw Charm.
• This card can let you use Flute of the Outer Gods without curses.
• This card is rather disappointing.

I am going to attempt to put a positive spin on this card by trying to identify its most apparent niche.

Spell events are great. I love spell events. They are typically really impactful, but they're also really expensive. So lets say Luke Robinson wants to run Dayana Esperence with Read the Signs, but that's some pricy tech, you gotta muster up 2 resources every time you wanna do that. But by spending 4 resources and 2 actions, you can make this combo pay for itself. That's something, sort of.

And you can apply Fine Tuning to these cards, so you can trigger them twice per turn. That means that for 8 resources and 2 actions you can generate 4 resources per turn dedicated to playing spells. Not the worst engine, and it only costs 2 XP and 4 card slots. Getting the startup money is hard but not insurmountable, and if you're gonna be playing a lot of spells and getting a lot of clues then it will pay off.

Consider Prophetic. For 3 XP and 3 Resources you can get 2 resources per turn that can be spent on Spells, Fortune, and Spirit Cards, and can alternatively be spent on boosting tests on those same cards. Two copies of Mortar and Pestle is 1 more resource and 1 more action to play and requires you get clues to acquire those resources. Is Prophetic Clearly better? Yes, absolutely, but it also costs 3 XP and is restricted to Level 3 Guardian/Mystic/Survivor access. Mortar and Pestle can be taken by anyone with level 0 Seeker access, has synergies with other Seeker cards, and can bank its resources for later turns, something you can't do with Prophetic.

Is this an auto-take for 99% of builds? Absolutely not. But it's a card that I think you can extract a lot more value from than it first seems, especially if you're running Dayana Esperence and can reliably get clues.