TOPIC: 2027 Token Collection

As hinted at in the prologue video for 2026's Cravenmoor campaign, the theme for 2027 will be an homage to the Call of Cthulu genre. Below is some info that might help with token naming and design.

The Void: This is a place outside the known Outer Planes where these timeless gods dwell. Some of the lesser gods are awake and they have active cults near the party's location. While they have some "fun" bringing their brand of misery to the living realm, their ultimate goal is to awaken Kthala so it can open a portal to the living realm -- and destroy it.

Kthala - We are going to call the Big Bad "Kthala", and the main theme of the year will be party's attempts to stop cults of various lesser Void gods from awakening Kthala.

Lesser Gods - We have a list of 6-7 lesser gods that have cults buily about their more specific interest in the general theme of "bringing forth annihilation to all things." Here are most of the sub-cult themes:

Cult of Blood
Cult of Decay
Cult of Discord
Cult of the Grave
Cult of Plagues

Wardens - This is the title given to the members of a secret society who seek to thwart the plans of the various cults. They are somewhat of a steampunk-techie group with the use of items like the various Voidbane guns.

Dream and Endless Dream - These are a two new conditions that are a sub-set of a Will save that represents the character being overcome by their interaction with the Void. They become catatonic, but they also become a portal from the Void. Sometimes the effects last until the end of the room (Dream), but a missed save vs Endless Dream effectively removes the character from the game. There will be cures for these conditions, of course. We are toying around with the idea of making some of the URs have a relationship with these saves to capture some of the "it is dangerous to use it" fun present in the Cthulu genre. It may just be in the form of negatives to Will saves (or Dream saves specifically), or maybe it requires a Dream save under certain conditions. I know saves slow down the game, but maybe in this case it is worth the trouble to capture the feel of the genre.

Miscellaneous - Much like the Sunshot and Blunder weapons in the past, we will have "Voidbane" steampunky guns that deliver extra damage to Outsiders. We are going to reprint the Footman set of Uncommons to represent items recovered from the bodies of the town guards killed by the various cults. We are going to up the damage on one-shot Ammo tokens so they are closer to other one-shot items like Scrolls and Thunderstones.

NOTE: This year we are only asking for Ultra Rare and higher level token ideas. Please include any re-print ideas for those tokens within their respective idea post.

Thanks for your help! I can't wait to see your token ideas!

I feel like the vacancy in the list of Lesser Gods should definitely be filled by a Cult of Francis

Cool theme!

Jeff Martin wrote: We are toying around with the idea of making some of the URs have a relationship with these saves to capture some of the "it is dangerous to use it" fun present in the Cthulu genre. It may just be in the form of negatives to Will saves (or Dream saves specifically), or maybe it requires a Dream save under certain conditions. I know saves slow down the game, but maybe in this case it is worth the trouble to capture the feel of the genre.

I would caution against negatives to Dream saves specifically, because in practice that's too likely to be accidentally forgotten during play.

If a token gives me a situational bonus and I forget to use it, no big deal, I'm only disadvantaging myself. If my token gives me a situational penalty and I forget to apply it, now I've inadvertently cheated by making my token OP, and as a honest person I feel bad when I realize what happened several hours later.

Will save penalties are obviously fine because they go on the party card, and I like the idea of at least exploring 1/game "Make a Will save vs Dream; if successful (awesome thing)", emphasis on the 1/game.

Cool theme!!

Very cool theme! Excited for 2027.

There is a huge deficit in Elven Bismuth and Oil of Enchantments. Any chance to skew the makeup of 2027 uncommons into more items for those trade goods? Could be thematic too if each cult got their own uncommon armor, shield, and weapon!

It would negatively effect the value of my Rod of persuasion, but if we want an investigator vibe then it is the right year for the reprint.

I would like to see the return of wands as a medallion of mystic mouth wizard. I would use it more but they are out of print.

Also I see no reason not to return to once per room non consumables wands given the power level of the mage medallion and mage legendary outclass mystic mouth. If the wands are non consumables then we could replace a rare bead with a rare wand

Wand of force
Rare, once per room
8 points of force damage to a single target.

Jeff Martin wrote: We are going to up the damage on one-shot Ammo tokens so they are closer to other one-shot items like Scrolls and Thunderstones.

Ammo tokens are analogous to Dusts rather than Scrolls: they are consumed without the use of an Action to augment the abilities of an attack (with standard attack bonuses applying). If Ammo is being bumped up, then Scrolls (which do not retain standard attack bonuses and generally cost a Standard Action to use) will be too weak by comparison.

Jeff, maybe this could be the year to bring back Rumor tokens and/or find a way to make old light creating tokens useful again. Both of those seem on target with this year's theme.

What about coming up with a 4K order option in 2027 that has a bonus Token specific to a 4K order and above (so you would get two of the bonus 4K Tokens if you bought an 8K order)? Maybe a Relic level type Token of some sort?

This just popped into my head so I'm not sure if there's more cons than pros to it but maybe another way to help drive Token sales. Too late at night now to give it much more thought. Time to catch some zzz's...