Arkham Noir: Case #2 – Called Forth By Thunder Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Components
• Clue Cards
  • Clue Types
  • Investigative Techniques
  • Attributes
• Setup
• Game Play
• 1. Action Phase
  • a. Take the First Lead card in hand
    • Discarding Clue Cards / Time Penalty
  • b. Play the First Lead card to an open case
    • Locks, Keys and Other Requirements
    • Mental Strain Rule
    • Stability Check
    • Card Effects
    • Storm Cards
    • Formula Card
  • c. Discard the First Lead card and play a card from your hand to an open case
  • d. Discard the First Lead card and close an open case
    • Stability Bonus
  • e. Discard the First Lead card and pass
• 2. Maintenance Phase
  • a. Check victory condition
  • b. Check Stability Penalty area
  • c. Check Time Penalty area
  • d. Refill Leads row
    • Running Out of Leads
• Professional Contact
• Game End
• Game Settings
• Card Effects Reference
• Acknowledgements
• Credits

Objective

Score 5 different types of Clue cards with the Puzzle attribute before the game ends.

Components

• 50 Clue cards
• 6 Victim cards
• 4 Reference cards
• 1 Professional Contact card
• 4 Storm cards
• 1 Formula card
• 3 Player Aid cards

Clue Cards

Each Clue card shows its clue type(s) at the top, its attributes (if any) below the clue type, an investigative technique icon on the left edge and right edge, and its card effects at the bottom. Voluntary effects are shown in brown; mandatory effects are shown in black.

Clue Types

• Person of interest
• Threat
• Artifact
• Evidence
• Location
• Monster
• Formula

Investigative Techniques

• Collection
• Surveillance
• Interview
• Research

Attributes

• Puzzle
• Key
• Lock
• Card minimum
• Lightning
• Lightning card
• Skeleton key
• Skeleton lock

Setup

A. Place the four Reference cards on the playing area, as pictured. Use the sides without an asterisk (*) for a standard difficulty game.

B. Shuffle the Victim cards. Return one to the box, unseen, and place the others in a face-down stack to the right of Reference Card 1. Draw two Victim cards and place them face up below Reference Card 2. These are your open cases.

C. Shuffle the Clue cards. Place them in a face-down stack to the left of Reference Card 1. This is the draw stack.

D. Draw 5 Clue cards and place them face up, from right to left, in the five spaces to the left of the draw stack. This forms the Leads row. The first card on the left of the main row will now be referred to as the First Lead card.

E. Draw 3 Clue cards and hold them face up. This is your hand.

F. Place the Formula card and the Professional Contact card to the left of your open cases. If you have more than one Professional Contact card (from other cases in this series), you can use any of them as a substitute.

G. Shuffle the Storm cards. Place them in a face-down stack above Reference Card 4.

Game Play

The game is played over a series of turns until one of the three game-ending conditions is met (see Game End).

One turn consists of 2 phases:

1. Action Phase: You must take the First Lead card and perform one of the five actions, which are described in detail in the following section.
2. Maintenance Phase: Perform all four end-of-turn maintenance actions and check the three game-ending conditions.

1. Action Phase

a. Take the First Lead card in hand

Take the First Lead card and add it to your hand. Your hand size is limited to 3 cards. If you ever have more than 3 cards in hand, you must immediately discard until you have only 3 cards left.

Discarding Clue Cards / Time Penalty

Whenever you discard a Clue card for any reason, put it in the Time Penalty area if it has the time icon. Otherwise, put it in the Discard area.

b. Play the First Lead card to an open case

Take the First Lead card and play it to an open case. Each open case starts with a Victim card and forms its own line of investigation, with Clue cards added to the right of previously-played cards.

You can play the Clue card to an open case if the investigative icon on the left edge of the card matches one of the icons on the right edge of the last card in the line of investigation. The Clue cards with the ANY icon can be played in any open case and can be combined with any other investigative technique.

Locks, Keys and Other Requirements

Some Clue cards have a Lock, Card minimum, Lightning card or Skeleton lock attribute on their top left edge. In order to play these cards, the open case must meet the additional requirements described below:

• To play a Clue card with the Lock attribute to an open case, there must be a Clue card with the Key attribute already in that line of investigation. Each Key card allows you to play one Lock card. The cards do not have to be played consecutively.
• To play a Clue card with the Card minimum attribute to an open case, there must be at least that many Clue cards already in that line of investigation.
• To play a Clue card with the Lightning card attribute to an open case there must be a Storm card with the Lightning attribute already in that line of investigation. You can not play more than one Clue card with the Lightning card attribute in each open case (see Storm Cards).
• To play a Clue card with the Skeleton lock attribute to an open case there must be a Clue card with the Skeleton key attribute already in that line of investigation (see Formula Card).

Mental Strain Rule

Long investigations are draining. Each card played to an open case after the seventh (which lines up with the Reference Card 1) requires a Stability check before you resolve that card's printed effect(s). When applying this rule, the Victim card does not count but the Storm cards do.

Stability Check

To perform the Stability check, draw the top card of the draw stack. If the card has the Stability Penalty icon, place it in your Stability Penalty area. Otherwise, discard the card (see Discarding Clue Cards).

Card Effects

As soon as a Clue or Storm card is played to an open case, you must resolve the card effects printed at the bottom of the card, in order from left to right. These effects are described in detail in the card effects reference (black effects are mandatory and brown effects are optional).

Storm Cards

As soon as you play a third Clue card with the Time Penalty icon to the same line of investigation, after you resolve the clue card's effects, reveal the top card from the Storm stack and play it in that line of investigation, resolving its effects as well.

The Tempest Mountain Clue card allows you to play a Storm card in your line of investigation without having accumulated the three Time Penalty icons on it.

Whatever the mode used, each open case can only have one Storm card in its line of investigation.

Storm cards are not Clue cards. Therefore, the Storm symbol does not count when it comes to gathering the 5 different types of Clue cards needed to close a case. Storm cards are the only ones that contain the Lightning attribute required by some Clue cards, although only 2 of the 4 Storm cards contain that attribute.

Formula Card

The Third Aklo Ritual Formula card is outside the draw stack and can be obtained in two different ways:

• By playing in the same line of investigation two Clue cards, each bearing half of the Formula symbol, consecutively in the correct order. Resolve the effects of the card just played before taking the Formula card.

OR

• By gathering both parts of the formula in the Closed Cases and/or Big Picture areas.

In both cases, the Formula card is obtained immediately and is taken to your hand, always respecting the hand size limit of 3.

The Formula card is one more Clue card, although it is the only one that contains the Formula clue type, besides the combined Skeleton key and Puzzle attributes. This card will therefore count when it comes to gathering the 5 different types of Clue cards needed to close a case, and it can also be one of the Puzzle cards required to win the game.

The Skeleton key attribute allows you to play the card containing the Skeleton lock attribute or use it as a common key to play a card with the Lock attribute.

c. Discard the First Lead card and play a card from your hand to an open case

Discard the First Lead card (see Discarding Clue Cards) and play a Clue card from your hand, using the same rules described previously.

d. Discard the First Lead card and close an open case

Discard the First Lead card (see Discarding Clue Cards) and close one of your open cases. An open case can be closed if its line of investigation consists of at least five different types of Clue cards. Neither the Victim card nor the Storm cards are Clue cards.

You can score any Clue cards with the Puzzle attribute in that case if, when these are removed, there are still at least 5 different types of Clue cards remaining in the case.

Place the scored Clue cards in the Big Picture area, and all other cards from the closed case in your Closed Cases area (above Reference Card 3). If there is a Storm card in the closed case, this card is removed from the game. If you have no more open cases, reshuffle all cards in the Discard and Time Penalty areas into the draw stack, then draw a new Victim card.

Stability Bonus

If you close a case which contains all 6 types of Clue cards (before scoring the Puzzle cards), you may draw one card from the Stability Penalty area.

Worked example: a line of investigation holds William Tobey (the Victim card), First diary, Malevolent presence, Degeneration, Fiendish tempest (a Storm card), Tempest Mountain, Thunder-devil and Third Aklo Ritual. The player decides to close the case as it now contains 6 different types of clues, which also gives them the Stability Bonus. They only score the Threat clue (with the Puzzle attribute) that they place in the Big Picture area. They cannot score any more clues with the Puzzle attribute because if they did so, they would be left with fewer than 5 different types of Clue cards in the case. They place the other cards, including the Monster clue and the Formula clue, but not the Storm card (which is removed from the game), in the Closed Cases area.

e. Discard the First Lead card and pass

Discard the First Lead card (see Discarding Clue Cards) and proceed to the maintenance phase immediately.

2. Maintenance Phase

Before starting your next turn, you must perform each of these steps in the following order:

a. Check victory condition

If you have five or more Puzzle Clue cards of different types in your Big Picture area, you win. Otherwise, continue playing.

b. Check Stability Penalty area

If the number of cards in your Stability Penalty area is equal to or greater than 5, you lose.

c. Check Time Penalty area

If the number of cards in your Time Penalty area is equal to or greater than 5, you must:

• Draw a new Victim card and start a new open case below the others. If there are no Victim cards when you must draw one, you lose.
• Place all cards currently in the Time Penalty area in the Discard area.

d. Refill Leads row

Move all the Clue cards in the Leads row to the left, closing any gaps. Draw cards from the draw stack to fill the empty spaces in the Leads row, from left to right.

Running Out of Leads

At any point during the game, if you must draw a card from the draw stack but find it empty, you must:

• Draw a new Victim card and start a new open case below the others. If there are no Victim cards when you must draw one, you lose.
• Take all cards from the Discard area, shuffle them, and form a new draw stack with those cards.
• Draw the necessary card(s) and continue with your turn.

Professional Contact

At any time during the game, as a free action, you can use the card effect listed on either side of your contact. Remove the card from the game once used.

• Side 1. Perform a Stability Check and then play a Clue card with the Lock or Skeleton lock attribute even though there is no card with the Key or Skeleton key attribute in that open case that allows you to.
• Side 2. Choose a card from the Time Penalty area or the Stability Penalty area, and add it to your hand.

Game End

The game ends immediately when any of the following conditions is met:

1. The number of Puzzle Clue cards of different types in your Big Picture area is at least 5 during your maintenance phase. You win.
2. The number of Clue cards in your Stability Penalty area is equal to (or greater than) 5 during your maintenance phase. You lose.
3. There are no Victim cards remaining but you must draw one. You lose.

Game Settings

These are settings that you can change to adjust the difficulty level of the game. Each of the settings can be changed independently of the others. The rules assume the default setting for each of these options. Adjust the rules to reflect the new settings when playing.

Option 1: Victory condition. Adjust by using the reverse of the Reference Card 3 during setup.

• 5 different Puzzle Clue card types (default and easy)
• 5 different Puzzle Clue card types, of which one must be the Ancient Forgotten One card (difficult)

Option 2: Number of Victim cards. Adjust during setup, step B.

• 4 Victim cards (difficult)
• 5 Victim cards (default)
• 6 Victim cards (easy)

Option 3: Stability and Time limits. Adjust by using the reverse of the Reference Card 4 during setup.

• Limits of 5 (default and difficult)
• Limits of 6 (easy)

Card Effects Reference

Effect icon	Description	Total	Type
hand taking a card from the Leads row	Take 1 card from Leads Row	9	Voluntary
hand taking a card from the Discard area	Take 1 card from Discard area	4	Voluntary
hand taking a card from Closed Cases	Take 1 card from Closed Cases	2	Voluntary
hand taking a card from the Stability Penalty area	Take 1 card from Stability Penalty	2	Voluntary
hand taking a card from the Time Penalty area	Take 1 card from Time Penalty	4	Voluntary
magnifying glass over the draw stack	Search Draw Stack for 1 card, then reshuffle	2	Voluntary
discards shuffling into the draw stack	Shuffle discards into Draw Stack	2	Voluntary
hand exchanging a card with the penalty areas	Exchange 1 card from Hand with 1 card from the penalty areas	1	Voluntary
Storm cloud being revealed and played	Reveal and play the first Storm card	1	Voluntary
card with an X, from hand	Discard 1 card from Hand	4	Mandatory
cards with an X, from the Leads row	Discard 1 card from Leads Row	5	Mandatory
detective figure with an exclamation mark	Perform a Stability Check	20	Mandatory

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the players of Arkham Noir, who have been very receptive, and the authors whose stories continue to inspire me. Thanks as always to the Game Artisans of Canada, in particular Sean Ross and Graeme Jahns, who have taken an interest in this project, and Al Leduc, whose friendship and support transcends any single project.

Ludonova would like to thank Antonio Varela, David Ferrero and Paco Cantarero for their collaboration with play testing.

Credits

• Game idea: Yves Tourigny
• Illustrations: Yves Tourigny
• Graphic design and layout: David Prieto
• Rules: Juan Luque and Rafael Sáiz
• Development: Juan Luque and Rafael Sáiz

Ludonova SL · San Pablo 22 · Córdoba · Spain www.ludonova.com © Ludonova 2018