Arkham Horror: The Card Game – The Innsmouth Conspiracy

The Innsmouth Conspiracy invites you to take your first steps in a twisting, time-jumping tale, starting with the campaign’s first two scenarios included in this expansion. From the heart of Innsmouth itself to the torturous coastline and beyond, these scenarios tee up an adventure that will continue to unfold across the subsequent six Mythos Packs. Far from including just two new scenarios, however, The Innsmouth Conspiracy brings five new investigators to the table with an undersea trove of player cards to support new types of decks—along with new mechanics for players to sink their teeth into, including keys, flood tokens, bless tokens, and curse tokens!

Call of the Deep Ones

You awaken in dull, throbbing pain, trapped in a smooth stone chamber. Kelp dangles from the ceiling and a rhythmic drip echoes through the cave. You have no memory of how you arrived here, but you know you have to get out. The tides may be rising, and deep within the tunnels that surround your pit, you can hear an awful croaking and gurgling…

From the very first scenario in this deluxe expansion, horrifying creatures shadow your footsteps as you search for a way to escape. Yet the memories slowly resurfacing in your mind may be more horrifying still as you find your thoughts casting back to the Innsmouth Look (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 106) sported by many of the town’s residents. Though Deep Ones lurk beneath the waves and creep through wave-carved passages, within Innsmouth itself you must contend with the Cultists and Hybrids belonging to the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Your search for answers will lead you across Innsmouth and beyond, but the Memory of Oblivion (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 98) may become more lethal than your current amnesia.

To plumb the hidden knowledge of the Fish Graveyard, you must clear its clues and obtain the red key token!

This campaign also introduces keys and flood tokens to the game for the first time, introducing an added layer of interactivity for any scenario. For instance, as you trek through the tidal tunnels beneath Innsmouth, you may find yourself in a Fish Graveyard (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 49)—a location that will only reveal its secrets, hidden within a pile of fish guts, once you’ve removed all of the clues and found the red key somewhere in the scenario. You must be quick with your search, however, as these tunnels are prone to flooding. While flood tokens offer no inherent effects, a card like Awakening (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 42) means you won’t want to hesitate for long in a fully flooded location.

A Blessing or a Curse?

As the inhabitants of Innsmouth grow pallid and ichthyic, the chaos bag itself is also shifted with the introduction of bless tokens and curse tokens. A host of player cards in this expansion introduce and interact with these new tokens, yet few investigators have the opportunity to interact with bless tokens to the same extent as Sister Mary (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 1), a new arrival to your team in this deluxe expansion. Sister Mary adds two bless tokens to the chaos bag during setup, and she’ll add another one at the end of every round—and when she draws the elder sign token!

Unlike a standard chaos token, bless tokens like those provided by Sister Mary don’t provide a final answer to your skill test—they merely push you closer to success. When you draw a bless token, you apply +2 to your test, but the bless token is then removed from the chaos bag and you must draw another token. This may seem like the perfect way to stock the chaos bag in your favor, but you must take care lest Sister Mary should suffer a Crisis of Faith (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 7). Crisis of Faith could lead to your chaos bag becoming filled with curse tokens, the other new type of token now slipping into the chaos bag. As the dark reflection of a bless token, each curse token applies –2 to your test when it’s drawn, before being removed from the chaos bag and forcing you to draw another token.

When you draw a bless token, you’ll apply +2 to your test result and draw another token. Similarly, a curse token applies –2 to your test result before you draw another token.

Though Sister Mary may specialize in bless tokens, every class will have new cards in The Innsmouth Conspiracy and throughout this cycle that invite them to seek bless tokens or tempt fate by dabbling with curse tokens. Seekers may be tempted to delve into secrets best left untouched with a Cryptic Grimoire (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 22), a Tome that draws your investigator down a dark path before you can translate it. Or perhaps, you’ll cast a Ward of Radiance (The Innsmouth Conspiracy, 31), a shield against the darkness of the Mythos, that may allow you to cancel a treachery card for free—provided you are fortunate. No matter which aspect you prefer to use, you’ll have plenty of ways to harness the new bless and curse tokens.