Arkham Horror: The Card Game – The Scarlet Keys: Investigator Expansion
Arkham Horror: The Card Game – The Scarlet Keys: Investigator Expansion Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Expansion Icon
The cards in The Scarlet Keys investigator expansion can be identified by this symbol before each card's collector number: [expansion icon, shown as a picture in the printed insert]
Additional Rules and Clarifications
Dilemmas and Revelation Abilities
Some player cards in this expansion (namely those with the Dilemma trait) possess revelation abilities. As with revelation abilities on other card types, these abilities resolve when the card is drawn or otherwise enters your hand, not when the card is played.
- These cards have no cost ("–"). These cards cannot be played; their effects only resolve when they are drawn or added to your hand.
- After resolving a revelation ability on a player card, place it in its owner's discard pile.
- Revelation abilities do not resolve during setup. If one or more player cards with revelation abilities are drawn during setup, wait until the game begins, then each player (in player order) resolves all of their own revelation abilities in the order of their choosing.
Exile
Some player cards in this expansion must be exiled when they are used. When a card is exiled, it is removed from the game and returned to your collection. During campaign play, a card that has been exiled must be purchased again with experience points (between scenarios) if you wish to re-include it in your deck. If exiling 1 or more cards would reduce your deck below your investigator's deck size, when purchasing cards between scenarios, you must purchase cards so that a legal deck size is maintained (when purchasing cards in this manner, you may purchase level 0 cards for 0 experience cost until a legal deck size is reached).
New Keyword: Customizable
Customizable is a keyword that appears on some player cards in this expansion. Customizable cards might seem unremarkable at first, but have tremendous potential for improvement over the course of a campaign. By spending experience points, each one can be custom-tailored to become a powerful tool in an investigator's deck.
Each customizable card starts at level 0 and has a separate sheet containing a checklist of upgrades that can be purchased using experience points. Each upgrade is accompanied by one or more checkboxes.
A customizable card and its paired upgrade sheet.
Unless otherwise specified by a card effect, an investigator can only mark checkboxes on an upgrade sheet before or after a scenario, when they are upgrading their deck or purchasing new cards for their deck. Spending 1 point of experience allows an investigator to mark one checkbox on one of their cards' upgrade sheets.
To purchase an upgrade, an investigator must mark all of an upgrade's checkboxes. Once an upgrade is purchased, each copy of the card it is paired with is treated as having that upgrade (as a gained card ability) for that investigator only.
For example, Hunter's Armor has the following upgrade: "☐☐ Durable. Hunter's Armor gets +2 health." If 1 experience point is spent to check off one of the two boxes next to Durable, the upgrade is not yet purchased. After both boxes are marked (costing a total of 2 experience points), the upgrade is purchased, and each copy of Hunter's Armor in that investigator's deck is affected by the upgrade.
The printed insert shows the example card Hunter's Armor (Asset, Item. Armor. Customizable.) with its paired upgrade sheet, which reads:
- ☐ Enchanted. Hunter's Armor gains the Relic trait and takes up an arcane slot instead of a body slot.
- ☐☐ Protective Runes. Hunter's Armor may be assigned damage and/or horror dealt to other investigators at your location.
- ☐☐ Durable. Hunter's Armor gets +2 health.
- ☐☐ Hallowed. Hunter's Armor gets +2 sanity.
- ☐☐ Lightweight. Hunter's Armor gets –1 cost and playing it does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
- ☐☐☐ Hexdrinker. After 1 or more damage or horror is assigned to Hunter's Armor from a treachery card effect, you may exhaust it to draw 1 card.
- ☐☐☐ Armor of Thorns. After 1 or more damage or horror is assigned to Hunter's Armor from an enemy attack, you may exhaust it to deal 1 damage to that enemy.
Customizable cards have a variable level, as indicated by this level indicator.
- A customizable card's level is equal to half the total number of checkboxes marked on its upgrade sheet, rounded up. (For example, a customizable card with three marked checkboxes is a level 2 card. Spending 3 experience to mark three more checkboxes would make it a level 3 card.)
- Note that this means some investigators are not able to upgrade a customizable card past a certain point, if their deckbuilding options would forbid them from including the card in their deck after the upgrade is made.
- An upgrade sheet cannot have more than a total of 10 checkboxes marked. (This means that the maximum number of experience points that may be spent on a particular customizable card is 10, and its maximum level is 5.)
- Spending experience points on one or more upgrades for a customizable card already in an investigator's deck is considered to be "upgrading" a card for the purposes of card effects.
- An investigator may directly purchase one or more copies of a new customizable card with one or more upgrades by spending only the amount of experience points required to purchase those upgrades. (Doing so counts as purchasing a new card, not upgrading an existing card.)
- Upgrades for customizable cards are considered to be present on a card at all times (even while the card is in an out-of-play area, such as an investigator's hand or discard pile).
- Spending 1 or more experience points on upgrades on a customizable card's upgrade sheet is permanent and cannot be refunded.
- During gameplay, upgrade sheets should be placed in an out-of-play area nearby, so they can be quickly referenced. (Alternatively, if playing with opaque card sleeves, investigators may sleeve the upgrade sheet behind the card it modifies, so they can quickly access it whenever they need.)
- Additional printer-friendly upgrade sheets can be downloaded and printed from www.FantasyFlightGames.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What happens if I draw a third Dilemma after already resolving two?
A. It cannot be resolved, but it stays in your hand. You cannot resolve its revelation ability on a future turn, because you have already drawn it. (This is sometimes called a "dead draw" or a "dud draw.") To avoid this, try including fewer Dilemma events in your deck, or use Katja Eastbank to help manage them.
Q. If two or more investigators each draw a Dilemma during upkeep, what order are they resolved in?
A. During upkeep, each player draws one card in player order. Therefore, resolve them in player order.
Q. As Ursula Downs, can I purchase Hunter's Armor using 1 experience to buy its Enchanted upgrade (which gives it the Relic trait)?
A. Yes. Ursula would not be able to include the Hunter's Armor in her deck without the Relic trait, but since you may purchase it directly with that upgrade, you may skip the version of Hunter's Armor that does not have the Relic trait.
Q. What is the "final agenda" (for the purposes of End of the Road)?
A. The final agenda is whichever agenda is last in the agenda deck. (Or, to put it another way, if there is only one agenda remaining in the agenda deck, that is the final agenda). Some rare scenarios (such as those with extra set-aside agendas) may therefore have more than one final agenda.
Q. If I purchase a new level 0 customizable card during a campaign, do I still have to pay the minimum of 1 experience to add it to my deck?
A. Yes, but only if you are purchasing it with 0 experience spent on its upgrade sheet. If you spend any amount of experience on any of its upgrades, that satisfies the "minimum 1 experience" rule, and you may add one or both copies of that card to your deck at no additional cost.
Q. Likewise, if I purchase the upgrade for Honed Instinct or Power Word that allows me to add a third copy of that card to my deck, do I have to pay the minimum of 1 experience to do so?
A. No; paying for the upgrade satisfies that minimum cost.
Q. How do I ensure that an investigator does not randomly draw a class-restricted weakness for a different class than their own?
A. Either do not include weaknesses in your basic weakness pool that your chosen investigator could not take, or if you randomly choose one that is illegal for your investigator, simply return it to the basic weakness pool and draw a new weakness to replace it.
Q. How does Summoned Servitor's actions work? If its action causes a skill test, who is performing that test: me, or the servitor?
A. Each Summoned Servitor has its own pool of actions that can only be spent to perform the actions it has available. These actions do not count towards the total number of actions you may take each turn, and do not count as an action you are taking (for the purposes of other card effects). However, when the Servitor's action causes a skill test to occur (for example, if it attacks or investigates), you are the one performing that skill test, not the Servitor.