It makes me laugh that Roland Banks, the most straightforward investigator, has seen more and more weirdness appear in the guardian set. From knives and pistols In the basic box, you’ll now often see him with magical blades or flesh wards. One version of him involves Dr. Elli fishing for mystical artifacts. You wonder how he writes around having a mystical mirror on his special reports.

This is another thing he’s probably covering over with the trademark agency black highlighter: a mystical purifier. Of course.

For five resources, It’s an expensive pairing. But it’s an effective one. You can either investigate when enemies aren’t around with a solid degree of comfort. Staying in place while getting clues elsewhere is an extremely useful thing. And if you’re already running beat cops, and have some ally healing tools, it becomes even better.

For either one action or a fast exhaust of your beat cop, you can remove two clues from your weakness. Next turn, kill another rat or aloof foe and you’re out of the hole completely.

The German witch hunter helped you discover numerous clues from the rat swarm. Maybe that would stay off the official report.

This has been updated to match my "Signature Weakness Project." I have done my best to make sure that the original content isn't altered too much, out of respect for any comments.

One of the "shuffle this back into your deck" signature weaknesses. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: Put 2 of Roland's clues on his location. If you don't have 2 clues, place what you can, take 1 horror, and shuffle the back into your deck to dirge you again. Obviously, this is no fun, but Roland generally doesn't mind dropping clues, since can scoop them up again by Investigate or Fight actions. The "horror and reshuffle" is pretty nasty to Roland with his sad 5 Sanity, but, if you are running Roland, you should be packing horror healing (e.g. Logical Reasoning or Hallowed Mirror), so you should have answers, but getting defeated by horror is a credible threat, especially if you can't or won't hoard clues. This is definitely a lighter weakness than Cover Up, in that it can only possibly give you 1 mental trauma, but it does have a weird synergy with Roland's "box" signature weakness, so he may be the best investigator to run both sets of signatures.

For those who don't read the comments: Dirge can't take clues off of Cover Up, since they aren't "Roland's Clues." It can, however, get unspent clues off of Roland, so he can Investigate to get them, clearing Cover Up in the process. It's pretty inefficient (it could take 5+ actions with a bad hand and bad luck), but it beats the pants off a mental trauma or two....

The discard condition: Have 2 clues when you draw this, otherwise you get hurt, and it shuffles back in your deck.

All in all, this is an average signature weakness, maybe above average if you are in a horror-heavy campaign like Carcosa.

Box vs book If you are afraid of Trauma, stick with the "book" signature set, but, if you a e more daring, the "book" set actually helps with the problems of the "box" signatures, so maybe take both.

Nothing too fancy, this is basically a free Working a Hunch with the added option of creating a clue out of thin air, which is a fairly unique ability for a card. It might allow you to avoid a hard-to-access location while still finishing the act. It could also turn back on Fieldwork or Inquiring Mind or any other card that requires a clue on a location. If you are a bad person, it could cancel a VP location for your team. Most interesting, maybe, is that it can serve as a safety net for Roland's "box" set signature weakness if you draw that late enough in the game that there are no locations with clues. This makes Roland the only investigator with a clear synergy between his "box" and "book" signature sets.

So, if you are risk averse, play the "book" set. If you aren't, consider playing both.

On edit, that should read "clear positive synergy." When one weakness helps you with another, that's amore.

This has been updated to match my "Signature Weakness Project." I have done my best to make sure that the original content isn't altered too much, out of respect for any comments.

Everyone seems to think that this is a really bad weakness, and everyone is right. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: Roland needs to discover 3 extra clues at a location that has clues. This seems fairly easy, since Roland is pretty good at getting clues with his off-class access and special ability, plus cards like Evidence! and Scene of the Crime. So it's handleable, if it goes down early, and the fact that any investigator can trigger the action, and a dedicated clue-getter can clear this tout de suite (as someone more Francophonic than Roland might say), but, if it goes down late or in a scenario where there aren't clues in the normal way or after they've been discovered, Roland is in for a world of trauma. Roland can hedge his bets by reserving a clue until the last moment and using cards like Dr. William T. Maleson and Forewarned to get it back on a location, lessening that late-scenario "clue desert" problem. Remember that, if Roland gets defeated with this thing out, he gets 2 trauma for his pains. And with a low starting Sanity, this weakness can be campaign-ending.

The discard condition: Discover an extra 3 clues from a location with at least 1 clue. At least it stays in your threat area, so it's a once per scenario problem.

All in all, this is a way above average signature weakness.

Box vs book You need to ask yourself if the pretty pistol is worth the pain of this card. If no, consider the "book" signatures, which are less nice but also less awful. If yes, maybe use the "box" set or both for some extra Roland-ness.

I find it hard to believe that no one has written a review of this, but here we are. It's probably best compared to the .45 Automatic, since that's where the game design was when they came out. Same ammo, bonus, and damage, but the .38 is 1 resource cheaper and has a chance at +2. If I am reading the FAQ right, the critical language is "on your location," so clues on enemies, cards attached to the location, the investigator, etc do not count for the boost. Anyway, it's a nice gun, especially in resource-starved Roland. However, nice guns are pretty common, and this one pairs with one of the nastier signature weaknesses, so is it worth it?

The "book" signatures are less good and less bad , so they are probably the choice for the risk averse. People who are willing to gamble with Roland's shaky Sanity might be satisfied with the "box" signatures or go for both sets.