Arkham Horror: The Black Goat of the Woods Expansion
Arkham Horror: The Black Goat of the Woods Expansion Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
The Black Goat of the Woods should contain these components:
- 90 Investigator Cards, including:
- 11 Common Item Cards
- 11 Unique Item Cards
- 4 Spell Cards
- 8 "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership Cards
- 16 Green Corruption Cards
- 16 Red Corruption Cards
- 24 Cult Encounter Cards
- 88 Ancient One Cards, including:
- 36 Arkham Location Cards
- 24 Gate Cards
- 23 Mythos Cards
- 5 Difficulty Cards
- 1 Herald Sheet (The Black Goat of the Woods)
- 9 Monster Markers
All cards from The Black Goat of the Woods expansion are marked with a small monster head symbol on their fronts. This will allow you to later separate them from your Arkham Horror cards if you choose to do so.
Component Overview
The following are summary descriptions of the various components included in The Black Goat of the Woods. They should help you identify the components and introduce you to how they are used.
New Investigator Cards
The new Common Items, Unique Items, and Spells are similar to those found in Arkham Horror and can simply be shuffled into their respective decks.
The "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership cards are used to denote which investigators have chosen to infiltrate the mysterious cult that has begun to permeate through the town of Arkham.
There are also two new investigator card decks.
The Corruption deck consists of cards that represent the dark influence of the mythos upon the investigators. There are two types of Corruption cards: green Corruption cards are generally less severe, while red Corruption cards can spell doom for one or all of the investigators!
The Cult Encounter deck consists of special encounters that investigators can draw if they have a "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership and are in an appropriate location for nefarious cult activity.
New Ancient One Cards
The new Arkham Location, Mythos, and Gate cards are similar to those found in Arkham Horror and can simply be shuffled into their respective decks.
The Difficulty cards provide new options for players to make any game of Arkham Horror easier, or more challenging.
New Herald Sheet
This sheet represents a powerful supernatural entity that is preparing the way for the Ancient One. This sheet is only used in the "The Herald" variant described later in these rules.
New Monster Markers
There are nine new monster markers in this expansion, all of which feature the hexagon dimensional symbol. These monsters can be used in any game of Arkham Horror, and they are especially important when playing with the "The Herald" variant described later in these rules.
Setup
Before you play your first game of The Black Goat of the Woods, carefully punch out the cardboard pieces so that they do not tear.
Integrating the Expansion and the Base Game
Perform the two steps below before your first game of Arkham Horror using the The Black Goat of the Woods expansion. Assuming you do not later separate out these components, you will only need to perform these steps once.
- Prepare Decks. Shuffle the Common Items, Unique Items, Spells, Arkham Location, Mythos, and Gate cards into their respective decks.
- Prepare Monster Markers. If you are not playing with the "The Herald" Variant, shuffle the new monster markers in with the non-Mask monster markers from Arkham Horror.
Expansion Setup
When playing with the The Black Goat of the Woods expansion, perform the normal setup of the game as instructed in the Arkham Horror rulebook, with the following additions and changes listed below:
- Separate Decks. Place the eight "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership cards in a stack near the other Special cards. Shuffle the Cult Encounter cards into a deck and place the deck near the Arkham Location cards. Shuffle the sixteen green Corruption cards into a stack, then shuffle the sixteen red Corruption cards into a different stack. Then, place the green stack on top of the red stack to form a single Corruption deck. Place this deck near the other Special cards.
Expansion Rules
These rules are used in addition to those in Arkham Horror when playing with the The Black Goat of the Woods expansion.
Gate Bursts
Certain mythos cards have their gate location colored red. These indicate gate bursts. A gate burst works the same as a normal mythos card, unless the listed gate location has an eldar sign token on it, in which case the gate bursts open, causing the eldar sign token at that location to be removed from the board. A gate then opens at that location and a monster appears there as usual. However, a doom token is not placed on the Ancient One's doom track when a seal is burst open by gate burst. Also, this does not cause a monster surge.
Additionally, whenever a gate burst is drawn, all flying monsters move, regardless of their dimensional symbol.
The rulebook prints "eldar sign" where the Elder Sign tokens of the base game are meant; the text is kept as printed.
"One of the Thousand" Cult Memberships
During the game, investigators may be presented with the opportunity to join a mysterious organization devoted to the Black Goat known as the "One of the Thousand" Cult. Members of the cult have different encounters than other investigators in various locations around Arkham. See Cult Encounters, below.
Cult Encounters
Whenever a player with a "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership has an encounter at the Black Cave, the Unvisited Isle, or the Woods, he or she must draw a card from the Cult Encounters deck rather than the deck associated with that location.
Corruption Cards
When a player is instructed to draw a Corruption card, he or she draws the top card of the Corruption deck and places it near his or her investigator sheet. An investigator may have more than one Corruption card at a time.
Every Corruption card has an effect that is triggered whenever a particular monster movement dimension symbol appears on a mythos card during the Mythos Phase. There are two versions of every Corruption card in the deck: one with a dimension symbol on a white background and one with a dimension symbol on a black background. Effects on Corruption cards do not trigger unless both the symbol and the colored background on the Corruption card matches those of the mythos card drawn during the Mythos Phase. Triggering a Corruption card ability is not optional. Corruption cards are resolved immediately after monster movement during step 3 of resolving a mythos card.
Some Corruption cards also have passive abilities that are always in effect. For example, the card "Endless Greed" has both a passive effect and a triggered effect. The passive effect of "Endless Greed" (the text that appears above the monster movement dimension symbol) is always in effect as long as the investigator has that particular card.
When a gate is closed, all Corruption cards in play that match the closed gate's dimension symbol are discarded. Certain card effects may also instruct a player to discard cards off the top of the Corruption deck. Discarded Corruption cards are placed in a discard pile and are considered removed from the game. The Corruption deck is never reshuffled.
If a player is instructed to draw a Corruption card, but there are no cards available to draw, the Ancient One immediately awakens.
"The Herald" Variant
In this variant, the Black Goat of the Woods, a powerful and malevolent being, has appeared to prepare the way for the Ancient One. This increases the difficulty of the game and makes use of the Black Goat of the Woods herald sheet and a special monster cup.
Setup
Set up the Arkham Horror base board game as normal, performing the following additional steps during Steps 5 and 11.
- 5a. Place the Black Goat of the Woods herald sheet to the left of the Ancient One sheet.
- 11a. Set aside all monster markers with the hexagon dimension symbol to form a second monster cup. This is referred to as the hexagon cup.
Gameplay
This variant uses all of the standard rules and victory conditions, and adds the rules listed on the Black Goat of the Woods herald sheet:
- When a gate opens, draw a monster from the cup as normal, then draw a second monster from the hexagon cup and place both monsters on the gate's location.
- When a monster surge occurs, draw half the monsters from the hexagon cup (round down).
- Hexagon monsters are not removed from the game board when a hexagon gate is closed.
- Each time an investigator defeats a hexagon monster, he or she draws a Corruption card.
- Dark Young move as normal monsters.
- Each time a monster surge occurs, add a doom token to the doom track.
- Note that even if the hexagon cup is depleted of monsters, players should continue to draw monsters from the regular cup as normal.
Difficulty Level Variants
In this variant, players choose one of five Difficulty Level cards at the beginning of the game. There are two difficulties that make the game easier and two that make the game more challenging. A fifth card is included to represent the normal difficulty level of the game. This variant can be used in any game of Arkham Horror.
The effects of the five Difficulty Level cards are not printed in this rulebook; they are written on the cards themselves.