A Change in the Mythos

Published 11 July 2025 | Arkham Horror: The Card Game A Change in the Mythos A New FAQ for Arkham Horror: The Card Game is Now Available Hello once again, intrepid investigators! The streets of Arkham are looking a little damp lately. We hear some of the residents have been plagued with bad dreams, and even worse: the air smells curiously of fish and alien parasites. It should come as no surprise, then, that FAQ 2.4: The Drowned City Edition has arrived! This new FAQ for Arkham Horror: The Card Game includes several errata, some new rulings, and an update to the taboo and ultimatums as well as a few refractions. Also, as the FAQ document has been growing, we have decided to remove art to make it more convenient to browse and/or print out as a reference tool. At the end, we also present an early “beta” version of three different play environments for our players who would like to explore those waters.  Can you and your fellow investigators withstand the onslaught of rulings and FAQs? Read on and find out. Errata In a perfect world (without eldritch abominations, mosquitos, or property taxes), we would have no need for errata. However, we do not live in that world. Upon release, we sometimes discover card or setup effects that don’t function as intended, which is why the errata list exists. (Note that the following paragraph contains light spoilers for The Drowned City Campaign Expansion.) With The Drowned City out in the wild, a few important errata have emerged. While the alien city of R’lyeh is deadly on its own, much of the intended challenge of the campaign comes in the forms of stretch goals: fulfilling tasks, obtaining rare artifacts, and discovering ancient glyphs. To this end, each Objective on the acts in “The Western Wall” should be optional so that players may continue to scour the undersea cliff for all of their collectibles before advancing. Some missing text on the Core of the Vault has been added, restoring the intended play pattern of "The Grand Vault” scenario. Additionally, we have specified that a certain pesky antiquarian who was haunting the encounter deck in “The Doom of Arkham Part I” scenario should be set aside during setup. All of these are included in the list of errata. There are sundry other errata for other products as well. The reaction ability on the Barn in The Feast of Hemlock Vale’s “The Longest Night” scenario should have been Forced so that players can make friends with the stolid steed Ajax regardless of where they start play (as a reminder, unless otherwise explicitly stated, reaction abilities cannot trigger during setup). A clue threshold discrepancy in the reprint of The Circle Undone Campaign Expansion has been fixed, and several other errata have been included for other products. While seemingly minor, these errata reflect the intended experience of the game. We are grateful for the feedback we’ve received from the community since the campaign’s release! Rulings and Clarifications With the release of two new expansions that include specialist cards, new keywords, and investigators, we have plenty of new rulings and clarifications to share. What kind of events can Agatha Crane (The Drowned City Investigator Expansion, 7 and 8) play at the end of her turn? Can you play your investigator’s signature cards while under the effects of Transfiguration (The Drowned City IE, 76)? And who is considered to have advanced the act or agenda for the purposes of Mouse Mask (The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion, 43) or Whitton Greene (Harvey Walters Investigator Deck, 13)? (Spoiler: it’s each investigator.) With ruling (1.31) on Gaining, Spending, and Forfeiting Actions, we’ve more explicitly stated when players gain and lose actions. The rules have previously stated that players “reset” their actions in step 4.2 of the upkeep phase; it’s a bit muddier on what happens when their turn ends. We’ve specified that once a player chooses to stop spending actions and ends their turn, they forfeit any remaining actions they may have until step 4.2 of upkeep. This isn't a change so much as it is an explicit statement of how the game has always functioned. The minor ruling (2.26) on “Switch” and “Swap” Abilities is included largely as an effort to future-proof the mechanic. An example of such an ability is Ethereal Slip (Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion, 108 and 110), which has the investigator swap places with an enemy, allowing the investigator to bypass a treachery like Stone Barrier (The Innsmouth Conspiracy Campaign Expansion, 299) that prevents a player from "moving" out of that location. Another example is Tool Belt (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion, 120), which allows switching of assets in your play area, including those attached to other cards like Trigger Man (The Scarlet Keys IE, 76), enabling unique combos. In a spirit of playfulness, we’ve added a response to an occasional question we get regarding deckbuilding for the print-and-play investigator Subject 5U-21 (“Suzi”) in standalone mode. Suzi has a unique ability to upgrade into cards of a class that she “devours” during play, which can give her access to some wild deckbuilding combinations! This method of upgrading makes building a custom deck for standalone play a bit strange, however. It would seem a little too easy to simply allow players to add whichever cards they want for standalone mode. Instead, we suggest you take the least sane method by shuffling all of your possible upgrades together and drawing randomly, one at a time, until you reach the desired amount of experience. (Note that if the experience cost of a randomly drawn upgrade would push you over your intended amount, set that card aside and draw another in its place). Please enjoy and—more importantly—share photos of the process if you choose to deckbuild in this manner. Beyond the above rulings, we have compiled several of the more commonly asked questions we’ve received since the last FAQ. While we try to adhere to “rules as written” wherever possible, particularly “crunchy” or complex card abilities may challenge established paradigms, forcing us to reassess or overturn previous rulings. This approach is part of what makes Arkham Horror: The Card Game a “living” card game: some established norms may shift as the card pool changes, which often have additional ramifications for how other cards or well-established interactions may function. However, let me assure you that if you choose not to play with a particular ruling, we promise not to sic the O’Bannion bruisers on you! The Taboo List It wouldn’t be an FAQ update without at least a small adjustment to the Taboo List! The Taboo List is a set of optional adjustments to player cards. When we make changes to this list, we try to keep an eye to which cards are overpowering the “meta” of the game. Some cards may need adjustments to make them more attractive to players, while others may need a tweak or two to make them into less of an auto-include. The taboo list isn’t intended to perfectly balance each card’s power level, but it does allow us to limit overuse of some cards, rein in play that would trivialize scenarios, or encourage exploration of lesser-used corners of the meta. By chaining or unchaining cards, we adjust that card’s experience cost, and thus, its value to players. A card that feels over-costed at 5 experience might feel more at home at 3, which is what we’ve done to both Flurry of Blows (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 37) and Archibald MacVeigh (The Drowned City IE, 117). Upon release, these two level 5 cards haven’t seen the impact or play we feel they deserve, and so we hope the adjustment encourages players to try these cards out in their decks. (For those who may not be familiar, remember that unchaining a level 5 card doesn’t make it a level 3 card; it merely changes the experience cost to purchase that card.) The bulk of the changes to this new Taboo List come in the form of mutations. Some mutations are made in order to narrow or simplify its use. For example, everyone’s favorite getaway driver Chuck Fergus (Winnifred Habbamock Investigator Deck, 32 / The Scarlet Keys IE, 72) has an ability that makes some events fast. While simple, it made more sense for the health of the game (and fewer rules questions) to limit the playing of these events to during a player’s turn. Similarly, adding a limit to Swift Reflexes (The Circle Undone IE, 156) restrains a handful of combos that might enable a player to “go infinite.” Some other mutations were added to cards that we’d like to see played more often. Hand-Eye Coordination (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 30) is one such card. At the cost of 1 resource, you could use this card to save an action activating a Tool or Weapon during your turn, which may be just what an investigator needs for a final hour win. However, at level 1, players didn’t seem to find much use for it. The new mutation allows players to resolve an ability on a Tool or Weapon asset of level 0–3, ignoring all costs, giving Guardians a taste of what Seekers and Rogues have had with cards like Knowledge is Power (The Circle Undone IE, 231) or Sleight of Hand (The Path to Carcosa IE, 29). Another card that needed some love was Blood of Thoth (The Drowned City IE, 65). This card was intended to power up investigators like Amina Zidane (The Scarlet Keys IE, 11) and decks that aren’t afraid to play with doom. While this card was powerful in testing, we may have been a bit overzealous in our efforts to temper its power level when we sent it to print. Hopefully the new mutation encourages more players to try out some doom play on their own! Last but not least, we’d be remiss if we didn’t call attention to the second card we’ve ever added to the Forbidden list. Appropriately, that card is the Necronomicon (Petrus de Dacia Translation) (Harvey Walters Investigator Deck, 33). This card has always been incredibly powerful, and with the suite of tools available to players with something like the newly released Library Pass (The Drowned City IE, 99 and 118), we felt it was better to leave it as forbidden knowledge. Ultimatums, Boons, and Refractions We re-introduced Ultimatums and Boons in the last FAQ update, as well as smaller scenario and campaign-specific adjustments in the form of Refractions. These provide alternate playstyles to allow individual play groups to tweak the game and play how they wish to play. Cards that “exile” themselves are balanced with the cost of re-purchasing the card in mind. However, in standalone mode, these cards tend to overperform at every turn with very little downside. For that reason, we’ve offered an optional “Ultimatum of Exile” that makes these cards playable only in a campaign. It’s worth calling out the two refractions included in this update. We received a very specific rules question about Horror in High Gear, in which players in a 2-person group can “cheese” the scenario by ditching one vehicle at the starting location. This didn’t seem to warrant errata, but we did want to provide an optional adjustment to 2-player groups in the form of the Ultimatum of the Faulty Carburetor. Moreover, for 2–4 player groups who finished The Drowned City campaign and thought the big green guy was a little too squishy in The Doom of Arkham Part II, we’ve provided the Ultimatum of the Sleeper. With this ultimatum active, Cthulhu’s Enraged sides have even more health, keeping him in the game even longer. This optional ultimatum should provide more of a challenge to players who wish to push themselves to the limit! Current, Legacy, and Limited Environments (Beta) In this FAQ update, we’ve outlined three separate “beta” environments which players can use to shape their preferred play experience. While the rules and wording around these environments may change over time, we hope this provides you with a framework with which to sculpt your preferred play experience. At this point, we are presenting these environments so interested players can play and experiment with them, if they want to. We’ll also cover a little Q&A, with more to come in the future. Current Environment – “I’m new to the game.” or “I only want to play with what’s new.” The first of these is the “Current Environment” which allows players to deckbuild with only the core set, investigator starter decks, and the most recent few investigator expansions. With each new release, the “meta” of this environment shifts by degrees, requiring longtime players to change how they deckbuild without established “staple cards” or familiar play patterns. Playing within the Current Environment is the easiest way for a new player or group of players to get into the game. If you played the game around the time that The Path to Carcosa or The Forgotten Age cycles were originally released, you may remember what it was like to play in this kind of environment! Legacy Environment – “I want to play with my whole collection.” or “I don’t want to change how I play the game.” If you wish to simply carry on playing the game as usual, look no further than the “Legacy Environment!” As the card pool continues to grow, the possibility for powerful combos and perplexing interactions may become more commonplace. If you want to explore (and push) the limits of what is possible in the entire scope of the game, and work with no restrictions in a vast and ever-changing card pool, this is likely the environment for you. Limited Environment – “I want to mix and match Current and Legacy.” or “I want to challenge myself with a different approach.” With the “Limited Environment,” we’ve offered a combination of both the Legacy and Current environments. Players can pick three expansions’ worth of player card content to define their card pool (in addition to core and starter deck cards, of course) and build within these constraints. You can coordinate with your play group on whether or not you each want to play with the same three expansions or not, and you may also choose whether to play with only investigators from the chosen card pool, or with any released investigator. This offers a bit more control to players to tailor their play experience while still providing the more refined and cultivated degree of challenge and problem-solving that is present in Current. (As a final note: Parallel cards, earned story assets, and promos are not considered to be part of any specific environment or expansion. Play groups may choose whether or not to include these cards when establishing an environment.) Environments Q&A In a fireside chat and accompanying article earlier this year, we discussed the new paradigm for the game regarding these environments and deckbuilding with a smaller card pool. In hindsight, we recognize that there has been a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what this means for the future of the game. To address this, we’ve collected a few frequently asked questions to help you navigate these experiences in the short term. Later, we’ll provide even more clarifications in a dedicated Q&A article in the near future. Does the introduction of these new “Environments” mean I can’t use older content/expansions anymore? It doesn’t mean that at all! While we will continue to design new content for the game primarily with the Current Environment in mind, everything will always be compatible with what came before, and we encourage you to play with whatever brings you joy. Only limit yourself to what’s in the Current Environment if you want to! Will FFG / a later expansion ever require me to play using the Current Environment? Nope! Every expansion we release will be compatible with each of the environments detailed above. If you want to use cards from every era of the game, play Legacy. If you only want to use the newest cards, play Current. Or, if you want a mix of the two, try Limited! Will Current Environment content always be compatible with Legacy Environment content? Absolutely! Just like always, older content for the game will still be compatible with newer content, and vice versa. There’s nothing stopping you from mixing and matching as you see fit—in fact, we encourage it! And on that, we’re out! With news of trouble brewing over on Lot C in California, we’ve made plans to investigate some totally-not-cursed film sets. Hopefully none of us (literally) break a leg! If you see us at Gen Con, please stop by to say hello!   Josiah “Duke” Harrist, Game Designer Nicholas Kory, Game Designer Alex Werner, Game Rules Specialist Discuss this article in our forums! © 2016 Fantasy Flight Games. 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