Arkham -Well it is Halloween!

jopm

I'm afraid it didn't end well. It never does, really. Three intrepid investigators scouring the streets of Arkham in search of clues to stop the coming of Atlach-Nacha, the Spider-God. Randomly chosen from a deal of two per player, the combination of ex-con "Skids" O'Toole (Hamish), initially buffed by martial arts skills and an elephant gun, lawyer George Barnaby (Harvey), to whom "Skids" gave his elephant gun in exchange for a partnership as hunters that debuffed monsters for both when sharing the same neighbourhood, and street urchin Wendy Adams (Jimmy), member of the Sheldon Gang (so able to search the streets for stuff every refresh) and able to evade all monsters, seemed pretty good. "Skids" and his lawyer friend complemented each other with 3 Sanity and 7 Stamina, and vice versa, while Wendy boasted a respectable 4/4 stat combo. But the Big Spider made all gate openings gate bursts, so the possibility of sealing enough gates to win was remote. Also, the final battle was going to involve one investigator, or an ally, getting eaten automatically per attack round, so the priority had to be finding some friends (with the ultimate aim of feeding them to the big spider, but hey, what ya gonna do?).

The very first round was a good-humoured affair, with plenty to chuckle at as the lawyer met a scientist who wanted to show him something interesting in his lab and the same lawyer meeting up with the street urchin to give her money to go shopping. But a rumour card bringing five monsters on to the Miskatonic U. streets (not counting towards the monster limits and not affected by gate closing), building every turn unless you took some of them out until they broke eight and raised the terror level to maximum) was a bit of a problem. Hitting eight monsters and just letting the shops close seemed like not that big a deal, but under official rules with a limited number of allies, we stood to lose our spider-fodder, I mean helping hands, if we didn't keep grinding. But the monsters there were tough, most of them with either physical immunity or resistance. Meanwhile gates opened as usual, more monsters arrived, and the picture got very bleak very fast. Some vigilante activity in the streets helped to keep some of the roaming monsters slightly under control, but there were two wandering gates too, which sometimes helped, sometimes not.

The journeys to the outer realms were varied in character. "Skids" was the first to go travelling when he got sucked through a gate opening on his location, while Wendy dove on through another to get out faster. Both closed their gates, cleared a few monsters, and laid an elder sign. The lawyer had taken up point on Miskatonic U. streets for a turn or two, firing the expensive elephant gun at the resistant monsters and anything that popped up that wasn't protected, and waited for the others to join him and make a concerted effort. This resulted in a temporary slackening of pressure at least on this issue, but with gates opening like crazy, everyone had to move on and try to close them.

The pace wasn't bad, but the necessity to keep getting back to Miskatonic U. and kill at least a monster a turn made progress like, well, struggling through spider silk. "Skids" managed to escape one outer-worlds adventure by jumping through a handy portal, but went on another exursion without a clue where he was headed drawing a random gate tile. At one point Wendy was all alone on the streets with a lot of very nasty monsters wandering pretty freely. The outskirts filled up and the terror track began to rise. Hopes that a new rumour would come to replace the extra monster generator faded and the firefighting was now culling monsters on the rumour card and keeping the gates just below critical.

The lawyer managed to complete his personal quest by killing a single cultist, giving him a stamina boost, and "Skids" also completed his by gathering clues, but picked up a psychological aversion to undead or some such after a visit to the asylum. Wendy had to get a lot of elder signs on the board, which was what we all wanted, but that proved rather more difficult. She had a magical sword, which was handy enough, but "Skids" was the best fighter, and he kept falling into portals and suchlike.

In fact, it was the one and only gate burst that woke the old one, wiping one of only two elder signs on the board and opening that final gate. The lawyer had gotten himself lost in time and space by failing four times to roll his way out of trouble in his other-world encounter (yes, yes), and had just returned to the streets of Arkham in time to see the rumour card overflow (Wendy and "Skids" were both in other worlds) and raise the terror to maximum, cutting off any chance of allies, followed by the gate burst and the arrival of the old one.

It was an absolutely forgone conclusion, particularly with no spider-fodder, but the three investigators bravely faced down Atlach-Nacha with his -5 dice and both magical and physical resistance. The lawyer went first (into his gullet that is) after firing the elephant gun and without recourse to legal objection. Though a few dents were made with flailing axes and magical swords, Wendy was the round two Spider-munchie, leaving "Skids" no doubt wondering if jail would have been safer, and with kung-fu limbs akimbo, he got swallowed in round three and the streets of Arkham fell into the darkness of the spider's web.

As ever, a fun game. You don't go in there expecting to win, and going insane is half the fun.
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