Arkham Horror (Third Edition): Secrets of the Order Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Using This Expansion
• Components
• Map Tiles
  • Threshold Tiles
  • Threshold Encounters
  • Other Worlds
  • Hidden Paths
  • Hazardous Borders
  • Derelict Portals
  • Wild Gateways
  • Mystery Tiles
  • Expanded Neighborhood
  • Gate Bursts
  • Clues on Mysteries
  • Complex Encounters
• Monsters
  • Monster Movement
  • Attack Modifiers
  • Monster Keywords
    • Retaliate
    • Shrouded
• Adding and Removing Dice
• Archive Cards
  • Adding a Tile to the Map
• Double-Sided Cards
• Event Deck
• New Conditions
• Modifying the Mythos Cup
• Quick Reference

Using This Expansion

When using Secrets of the Order, add the expansion's components to your Arkham Horror collection as follows:

• Add the investigator and scenario sheets, investigator standees, map tiles, and all tokens to their respective supply or pool.
• Shuffle the encounters, headlines, allies, items, and spells into their respective decks.
• Sort the archive, special, starting, condition, and monster cards into their respective decks.
• Separate the anomaly and event decks for use as instructed in each scenario. Do not mix the event cards into the encounter decks.

Expansion Icon: Cards and sheets in this expansion are marked with the Secrets of the Order expansion icon to distinguish them from material from other Arkham Horror products.

Components

• 1 Mystery Tile
• 1 Anomaly Token
• 2 Neighborhood Map Tiles
• 2 Threshold Tiles (1 Hidden Path and 1 Derelict Portal/Bridge Street)
• 4 Investigator Sheets, with 4 matching tokens and plastic stands
• 3 Scenario Sheets
• 4 Headline Cards
• 45 Archive Cards
• 12 Anomaly Cards
• 80 Event Cards
• 54 Encounter Cards
• 20 Monster Cards
• 6 Condition Cards
• 7 Asset Cards
• 12 Starting Cards
• 18 Special Cards
• 2 Marker Tokens
• 20 Focus Tokens

Map Tiles

Secrets of the Order introduces two types of threshold tiles, two hexagonal neighborhood tiles, and one mystery tile.

Threshold Tiles

Thresholds represent portals between our world and other places beyond our ken. They feature hazardous borders, as described later on this page. When one or more threshold tiles enters play, either during game setup or as a result of a codex effect, shuffle the threshold encounter deck and put it into play near the other encounter decks. When a threshold tile is added to the map, orient the hazardous borders randomly.

Treat threshold spaces as street spaces for all effects, with the exception of encounters.

Threshold Encounters

Thresholds have their own encounter deck. During the encounter phase, if an investigator is in a threshold space and they are not engaged with a monster, they draw a card from the threshold encounter deck and resolve the effect that matches the type of threshold space they are in, as indicated by the icon in that space.

Other Worlds

The Underworld is an other world tile, and features the other world nameplate, to allow it to be easily distinguished from other types of neighborhood tiles.

Hidden Paths

Hidden paths are unpredictable and capricious routes between worlds. The hidden path tile is a corner tile that connects to the corners of the hexagonal neighborhood tiles. The borders on the tile indicate that the hidden path space is adjacent to the locations it abuts, and investigators and monsters may move across that border.

Example: Agatha Crane is on a hidden path and wishes to move one space. She can move to the Train Station, the Police Station, or the City of the Gugs. The street space does not share a border with the hidden path, so she cannot move there directly from the hidden path.

Hazardous Borders

Other worlds are dangerous, nightmarish places, and traveling through them is no simple task. Moving from one space to another in other worlds or thresholds can carry an additional cost, indicated by icons on the border lines that separate some spaces. These special borders are called hazardous borders, and after an investigator moves across one such border, they must immediately stop moving unless they pay an additional cost, as indicated by that border's icon.

• Damage: After you cross a damage border, you must stop moving unless you suffer one damage.
• Horror: After you cross a horror border, you must stop moving unless you suffer one horror.
• Focus: After you cross a focus border, you must stop moving unless you discard one focus token.

Monsters ignore the additional costs for crossing hazardous borders, and instead move as normal.

Example: As his move action, Preston Fairmont moves from a derelict portal to the Vale of Pnath and crosses a damage border (1). He wishes to continue his movement, so he suffers one damage. Then he moves to the Vaults of Zin, crossing a focus border (2). Because Preston is not moving any further, he need not discard a focus token.

Derelict Portals

Derelict portals are mystical doorways to distant realms, tucked away in the dark corners of our world, where they remain unseen by ordinary folk. Like streets, derelict portals connect two hexagonal map tiles.

Wild Gateways

Wild gateways are dangerous and unstable tears in reality. Although this encounter type appears on the threshold encounter cards in Secrets of the Order, wild gateway map tiles appear only in other expansions.

Mystery Tiles

Mysteries are places of power and madness that offer encounters that are more rewarding, yet more dangerous, than those found in other locations. There are two mysteries included in Secrets of the Order: the Witch House and the Unnamable. These single-space endcap tiles are added to the game board as indicated by some scenario setup maps.

A mystery is adjacent to any other space with which it shares a border. Investigators and monsters can move into mystery spaces as they would any other space.

Each mystery has a corresponding encounter deck. During the encounter phase, if an investigator is in a mystery space and they are not engaged with a monster, they draw and resolve an encounter card from that mystery's deck.

Expanded Neighborhood

A mystery tile is part of the neighborhood to which it is connected. If an effect places doom in a mystery space, that doom is counted with the rest of the connected neighborhood for the purpose of resolving any effects that count the total number of doom tokens in that neighborhood, such as anomalies. Similarly, if an effect references clues, monsters, investigators, or other components in a neighborhood with a mystery, that effect references components at that mystery as well (with the exception of gate bursts, as described in the next column).

Example: The Unnamable mystery is connected to the Merchant District neighborhood, and archive card 2 is in the codex, adding the anomaly rules to the game. There is two doom each at the Unnamable and the Unvisited Isle, when an effect places another doom at the River Docks. Because the Unnamable is part of the Merchant District neighborhood, there is now a total of five doom in that neighborhood, causing an anomaly to open in the Merchant District.

Gate Bursts

When you resolve a gate burst in an expanded neighborhood, including when the gate burst resolves in the mystery space itself, place one doom in each of three different spaces in that neighborhood, instead of one doom in each space in that neighborhood.

Clues on Mysteries

Because mystery locations have their own encounter decks, when a clue spawns at a mystery, place that clue in the mystery space and shuffle the event card into the top two cards of the mystery encounter deck. Clues at a mystery location can be gained via an encounter in that space, not via encounters in other spaces in that neighborhood. When you are at a mystery location, if an effect indicates that you would gain a clue from your neighborhood, gain that clue from the mystery space you occupy instead.

Complex Encounters

Unlike other location and street encounters, mystery encounters provide divergent paths that depend on the choices that the investigator resolving that encounter makes. Each mystery encounter card contains three sections of effect text for the same location.

To resolve a mystery encounter, first resolve the top effect, which offers a choice regarding how to proceed; each option is presented in bold type. Then, refer to the other two effects and resolve the effect under the header that matches that choice. Do not read the secondary effects before the investigator encountering the mystery makes their choice.

Example: During an encounter at the Witch House, Mark Harrigan finds an unusual journal, and the first effect ends, "You may read the first entry or the last entry in the journal." He chooses the latter option, and resolves the bottom effect, with the header, "Last Entry."

Monsters

Secrets of the Order introduces the following keywords and abilities that present new ways for monsters to behave.

Monster Movement

Monsters ignore the additional cost to cross hazardous borders, and instead move as normal. (See Hazardous Borders under Map Tiles.)

Attack Modifiers

Some new monsters display skills other than Strength as part of their attack modifier. When an investigator performs an attack action against a monster, they test the skill indicated by the attack modifier. Items and other effects that provide bonuses to Strength do not provide that bonus if the investigator is attacking with a different skill. However, assets and abilities that grant a bonus to Strength may have other effects as well, which can be used as normal while performing an attack action against a monster with an alternate attack modifier.

Example: Jenny Barnes attacks a Lodge Seer, who has an attack modifier of Strength -0. Jenny's lore is one, and her weapon, Jenny's Twin .45s, grants her a bonus when she attacks using Strength. That bonus doesn't apply, so she rolls only one die while performing an attack action to attack the Lodge Seer. She can still use the weapon's other effect to add one to the result of a single die.

Monster Keywords

New keywords appear on some monsters in Secrets of the Order. The rules for each keyword are detailed below. Reminder text is often printed where these keywords appear to assist players with a summary of these rules.

Retaliate

After you perform an attack action while engaged with a monster that has the "retaliate" keyword, if you dealt no damage to that monster as part of that action, it attacks you. This occurs even if you successfully dealt damage to a different monster as part of that action.

Shrouded

When a monster with the "shrouded" keyword is ready, it cannot be exhausted and investigators cannot look at the engaged/exhausted side of that monster card. In addition to the keyword, shrouded monsters feature the shrouded icon on their ready side.

While a shrouded monster is ready, it does not have any of the attributes that appear only on the engaged/exhausted side of the monster card, including health; attack and evade modifiers; damage, horror; or any ability text, trait, or keyword that does not also appear on the card's ready side.

A shrouded monster can be dealt damage while ready, but as it does not have a health value, it cannot be defeated by that damage until it is engaged or exhausted. A ready shrouded monster can be defeated or discarded normally by effects that do so without dealing damage.

When a shrouded monster engages an investigator, it is immediately defeated if it has already suffered damage equal to or exceeding its health. While engaged or exhausted, a shrouded monster can be defeated by damage as normal.

When a shrouded monster would be discarded, shuffle it into the monster deck instead.

When a shrouded monster is placed during setup, randomly choose one monster with the indicated name on the ready side and place it on the board without looking at the engaged side.

Example: Agatha Crane uses the Shriveling spell to deal two damage to a Raging Poltergeist monster in an adjacent space (1). Because it has the shrouded keyword, the monster has no health attribute while it is ready and so it cannot be defeated by this damage.

During the monster phase, the Raging Poltergeist moves into Agatha's space and engages her (2). The monster card flips to the engaged side and becomes a Confounding Specter, revealing that its health is two. Because the monster has suffered damage equal to its health score, it is immediately defeated, and does not attack Agatha (3).

Adding and Removing Dice

Some effects require investigators to change the number of dice in a test's dice pool after that pool has been rolled. To add one or more dice to a test, roll the appropriate number of dice and add them to the pool, determining successes as normal. To remove one or more dice from a test, select the specified number of dice from the pool and set them aside. Those dice no longer part of the test; they cannot be rerolled, and are not included in the test result.

Archive Cards

Effects in some scenarios place archive cards into an investigator's play area instead of adding them to the codex. Archive cards in an investigator's play area affect only that investigator.

After an effect discards an archive card from an encounter deck without returning it to the archive, place that card on top of that encounter deck from which it was discarded. If an effect discards multiple cards from an encounter deck, resolve the entire effect before placing the archive card on top of the deck.

Adding a Tile to the Map

During a scenario, effects in the codex may instruct the investigators to add tiles to the map. Archive cards with such effects include a map that shows which tiles to add to the board, and where to place monsters, doom, or other components.

When the investigators are instructed to add a tile to the map, shuffle the encounter deck for that neighborhood and prepare it as described during setup (described in the Rules Reference, entry 102.4).

Double-Sided Cards

Some double-sided cards become a different card type when an effect causes them to flip. Such cards indicate the original card type in parentheses on the reverse side. When such a card enters play, it enters play as the card type that matches the deck it came from, with the appropriate side up, and changes type when an effect causes the card to flip. When such cards are discarded, they are returned to the appropriate deck for the original card type.

Event Deck

If an effect would cause an investigator to take or discard a card from the event deck when there are no cards in the deck, cancel that entire effect and place one doom on the scenario sheet instead. Then shuffle the event discard to create a new event deck.

New Conditions

The new driven and fatigued conditions are printed on opposite sides of the same card. Because these two conditions have different names, investigators may have both conditions at the same time. Investigators are free to look at both sides of these condition cards at any time.

Modifying the Mythos Cup

When the investigators are instructed to remove a mythos token from the game, select a token of the appropriate type from those still in the cup, if able. Otherwise, select a token of the appropriate type from those that have been drawn from the cup, but not yet returned to it.

When instructed to add a token to the mythos cup, add that token directly to the mythos cup.

Quick Reference

Hazardous Borders

• Damage: After you cross a damage border, you must stop moving unless you suffer one damage.
• Horror: After you cross a horror border, you must stop moving unless you suffer one horror.
• Focus: After you cross a focus border, you must stop moving unless you discard one focus token.

Monsters ignore the additional costs for crossing hazardous borders, and instead move as normal.

Threshold Encounters

• Hidden Path
• Derelict Portal
• Wild Gateway

Shrouded Monsters

While a shrouded monster is ready, it cannot be exhausted and investigators may not look at the other side of that monster's card. (See full rules under Monsters.)