We played Arkham Horror today, a wonderful roleplaying board game based on H. P. Lovecraft’s stories. A nasty ancient god wakes up in a gloomy backwater town in the early twentieth century. Everyone’s toast. Pretty much guaranteed. But a lot depends on chance, and sometimes things get very funny.
Take Sasha, who ended up playing a female cultist. His luck at the start was unbelievable. First, his character went to visit her fellow cultists, hoping to help herself to some magical artifacts, spells, or anything else that wasn’t nailed down. The cultists weren’t pleased to see her: they took her money as a membership fee and unceremoniously threw her out of their secret lodge onto the dark street.
Undeterred, Sasha sent his cultist to the local library with the same plan. She’d barely had time to look around before running into a very strict librarian. He too threw this knowledge-hungry soul out onto the street. Waiting there was a nasty tentacled monster. Somehow, the poor girl escaped into the woods, only to get robbed by a gang of bandits! “Yeah, girl, today is clearly not your day.”
Misha’s character, a nun, also distinguished herself. While fighting the ancient god’s nightmarish monsters, she developed agoraphobia, with a hefty penalty for being outdoors, followed by claustrophobia, with the same penalty for being inside a building. The only place where she could keep her peace of mind was the house with the nice men and padded walls. Admittedly, we all met there quite often! And that wasn’t all: a little later, she gained a special skill that let her “invite” monsters there.
Then things took an unexpected turn. We failed to prevent the ancient god from awakening, so we had to fight him. His stats were impressive and promised us nothing good, while the combat rules filled our hearts with cosmic despair. Then our unhinged nun rolled so well that her very first hit knocked almost half the poor ancient cutie’s health off :))
