The struggle against the Ancient Ones spreads out of the museum and into the haunted city of Arkham in the Gates of Arkham expansion for Elder Sign. Adventures take place in over twenty locations including Velma’s Diner and the Curiositie Shoppe, Arkham Asylum and the Uninvited Isle. Meanwhile, gates to Other Worlds open throughout Arkham, destabilizing time and space.
Four new Ancient Ones threaten humanity and eight new investigators join the quest for elder signs. Investigators can also now acquire skills that give them lasting advantages. Memberships in either the brutal Sheldon Gang or the mysterious Silver Twilight Lodge help investigators complete tasks and grant them added rewards. It will take all the skills, resources, strength, and sanity you can muster to prevent the Ancient Ones from awakening – and to stay alive in the rough streets of Arkham.
Gates of Arkham takes the struggle against the Ancient Ones out of the museum and into Arkham, where monsters lurk in darkened alleyways and bystanders become the victims of gang rivalries. In the featured Streets of Arkham game mode, new Arkham Adventures and Mythos decks replace the original Adventure and Mythos decks, sending investigators on adventures throughout the city as four new Ancient Ones threaten to arise. Only by braving the city’s ubiquitous perils can you triumph against the ancient and awakening evil.
A City Full of Horrors
From its colonial-era founding, Arkham has been a refuge for witches and criminals, and legends suggest that since prehistoric times it has been home to some of the darkest forces imaginable. The turrets of Victorian homes, classical facades of Miskatonic University buildings, and tall booths of Velma’s Diner concealed inhuman horrors long before monsters came alive inside the museum.
In the Streets of Arkham mode, investigators choose which location in Arkham to visit without knowing what will happen to them inside. Arkham Adventure cards are played facedown, each featuring a specific location on the back. Some locations lure you towards them by offering rewards, such as the chance to regain sanity or gain a unique item. Others make terrible things happen at the stroke of midnight, for example, causing a ravenous Night Gaunt or giant Leng Spider to appear.
When an investigator arrives at a location, the card is flipped over to reveal the Adventure. At Hibb’s Roadhouse, you may participate in dark dealings with suspicious figures, or get caught in a police raid on the Sheldon gang. In the Curiositie Shoppe, you may discover a sealed ornate chest from another civilization, or you may arrive to find the door smashed open and a trail of blood leading inside. Once the adventure is revealed, there is no turning back. If you fail in your tasks, other investigators may come to your rescue, or you may find yourself running back out into the streets, drained of sanity and stamina. Success may reveal an elder sign or, at the very least, provide some clue, item, or skill to help you persevere.
Street Smarts and Occult Knowledge
As you navigate Arkham and survive its unpredictable Adventures, you’ll acquire lasting knowledge and enhanced abilities in the form of skills. For example, you may elicit some Occult Knowledge from a Miskatonic University professor. Unlike items, spells, and allies, skills may remain with an investigator as long as he lives, or be sacrificed in a moment of necessity to gain an even greater advantage.
Some locations and items give investigators membership in Arkham’s most influential organizations: the ruthless Sheldon gang, a bootlegging syndicate as infamous for their murders as their moonshine, and the Silver Twilight Lodge, an ancient and mysterious organization rumored to practice dark magic in the dead of night. Memberships sometimes allow you to bypass a task and sometimes offer extra rewards, such as an elder sign or an ally, for completing an Adventure.
Given Arkham’s perils, you may want to play one of the eight new investigators who are well versed in Arkham’s secrets or the bizarre physics of Other Worlds. As a cop, Tommy Muldoon knows Arkham’s criminal underworld as well as the Sheldon gang bosses. More interested in helping others than himself, Tommy can prevent another investigator from losing stamina by giving up his own– and gain some sanity in the process. Being a cop, however, doesn’t prevent Tommy from joining the Sheldon gang or the Silver Twilight Lodge. All secret organization have their police contacts.
Unstable Locations and Unexpected Events
Gates of Arkham introduces four Ancient Ones who tear at the fabric of space and time as they begin to awaken. One of them is Atlach-Nacha, who is stirring in his transdimensional home and beginning to weave the worlds together, tugging at time and space, sapping the investigators’ sanity and stamina, and causing gates to Other Worlds to open across the city. Gates tie specific locations to Other Worlds, perhaps linking the Miskatonic Library to the Far Side of the Moon, or Velma’s Diner to the cavernous, underworld Vaults of Zin. You cannot visit a location that has a gate without slipping through to the Other World, and you must resolve the Other World adventure in order to seal the gate and return to Arkham. The more open gates in play, the more monsters spawn, and the faster doom approaches.
Not only do gates breach the physical environment, the awakening Ancient Ones wreck havoc in all aspects of life in Arkham. The social, psychological, and cosmic chaos is represented by Event cards, which many locations force you to draw before you undertaking any tasks. Events create unpredictable conditions that last the length of your Adventure, and may hinder or help you. Overwhelming Fear could cause you to flee from a location in terror, or a sympathetic stranger may come forward and offer you Unexpected Aid.
Can you Survive the Streets of Arkham?
You never know who or what you’ll encounter among Arkham’s crumbling buildings, desolate squares, and unlit roads. At any moment a tentacle could reach out for you. Around any corner may be the entrance to some Other World. As you scour the city for elder signs, you could become involved in criminal rivalries or clandestine rituals, arrested by the police or lost in the halls of an insane asylum. Only one thing is certain: the Ancient One is regaining strength, and it is up to you and your fellow investigators to save not just the museum, but Arkham and the entire world.
In a typical game of Elder Sign, you confront the many cursed artifacts, vicious monsters, and other horrors lurking in the Arkham museum. The Gates of Arkham expansion takes you outside of the museum’s warm confines and into the city of Arkham itself. Gangs fight territorial battles in Arkham’s back alleys, not caring if a stray bullet hits an innocent bystander. Strange crates of foul-smelling, slimy, writhing creatures line the shelves of the General Store. Cultists perform dark sacrificial rites on the Unvisited Isle and ravenous gugs prowl through the University Administration building, hunting for victims.
Gates of Arkham features a complete deck of Arkham Adventures that allows players to visit twenty-six locations throughout this legendarily cursed city. Today’s preview will show you adventures from three locations: the Unnamable, the River Docks, and the Arkham Asylum. No matter where you go in Arkham, you are certain to encounter indescribable horrors.
A Haunted House
Inside the museum, you knew what horrors awaited you in a given room before entering it. But when playing the Streets of Arkham game mode, it is impossible to tell what lies you behind a building’s closed doors. Arkham Adventure cards are laid out on the table facedown, with the adventure itself hidden until an investigator dares to visit that location. The back of a card reveals only the location, difficulty of the adventure, marked in green, gold, or red, and an effect, which may be harmful or beneficial.
The decaying, empty house may not seem too foreboding, but the red symbol above it warns you that formidable terrors are within. However, if investigators refuse to enter, then at midnight the entire team will lose sanity, no matter where they are in Arkham. The Unnameable demands to be confronted, so you take a deep breath and cross the threshold, only to perceive a trail of blood leading down into the basement and hear muffled yet familiar screams. If you fail to rescue your friend from this incomprehensible threat, you lose five stamina and risk becoming devoured. If you succeed, you earn two Elder Signs and a unique item.
On the Shore of the Miskatonic
Having escaped the Unnamable, you may venture to the dark, foggy River Docks, where you could hand the unique item you earned over to another investigator who may be in dire need of it. However, upon your arrival you’ll discover that the grotesque, once-human Deep Ones are emerging from their underwater lairs and coming ashore. Upon your entry, a monster appears at this adventure, perhaps a giant, eel-like Dhole rearing out of the water. Many Arkham Adventure Cards have entry effects such as this, and they occur any time an investigator arrives at that location.
For repelling the Deep Ones back into the river depths you’ll receive a choice of rewards: two common items or the defeat of two more monsters. A split reward such as this enables you to receive whichever will be most useful for your team. There are also split penalties which compel you to choose between two evils – for example, losing a few points of sanity or advancing the doom track. When the choice is between two penalties, however, you cannot choose a penalty that wouldn't affect you, say, losing an item when you have none. The consequences of your misadventures cannot be avoided.
Among the Mad
In your citywide search for elder signs you will inevitably find your sanity slipping away. Visiting the Arkham Asylum allows you to exchange two trophies in order to fully recover your sanity. During your time there you may receive some Psychiatric Assistance, although recovery itself may prove traumatic. If you roll a terror result in a failed attempt at this adventure, you’ll lose your sanity rather than regain it. Regaining your sanity also takes time: a clock icon on the card indicates that successfully completing this adventure moves the clock one step closer to midnight.
Entering the Asylum might simply make matters worse. If you encounter the Ramblings of the Mad, you could push your entire team of investigators a little closer to insanity. Even success at this adventure results in losing your mind, with your reward being only a clue or a spell, neither of which will repair your psychological wounds.
No Place Is Safe
The Thing in the Basement, the Deep Ones, and the disturbed inhabitants of the Arkham Asylum pale in comparison to the powerful creatures that have waited for eons to regain control of the earth: Azathoth, Yig, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu. It is up to you and your team of investigators to take on the horrors that haunt old, uncanny Arkham, so that you can save not only yourselves, or Arkham, but the entire world.
Gates of Arkham contains:
* A complete deck of Arkham Adventure cards and Other World cards
* Eight Investigators and four Ancient Ones
* Twenty-five Event cards and thirty Mythos cards
* Eight Memberships and twelve Skill cards
* Additional items, spells, allies, gate markers, monsters and more
