User Manual

INVESTIGATOR
SHEETS AND
MARKERS
Each player receives one investiga-
tor sheet that describes the abilities,
skills, and starting equipment of the
investigator he controls. Each play-
er also receives one investigator
marker used to indicate his investi-
gator’s current position on the
board. See “Investigator Sheet
Breakdown” on page 21 for a full
description of investigator sheets.
INVESTIGATOR STATUS TOKENS
These tokens are used to track an investigator’s current
Skills, Sanity, Stamina, Money, and Clues.
• Skill sliders track the investigator’s current
skill levels. Investigators make skill checks
throughout the game in the course of their
adventures.
• Sanity tokens represent an investigator’s
current level of mental health.
• Stamina tokens represent an investigator’s
current level of physical health.
• Clue tokens represent vital insights and
information an investigator has accumulated
either before or during the game.
Investigators can spend Clue tokens to gain
bonuses on skill checks or to permanently
seal gates.
• Money tokens represent the investigator’s
current wealth. They are spent to purchase
equipment, pay fines, etc.
INVESTIGATOR CARDS
The small cards included in Arkham Horror are called
investigator cards. They represent useful allies the inves-
tigators may meet and items they may acquire during the
course of the game. There are six types of investigator
cards:
Common Items are ordinary but useful items that can
aid an investigator.
Unique Items are unusual, sometimes bizarre, and pos-
sibly magical items that can greatly assist an investiga-
tor. Elder signs, which can permanently seal gates, are
found in this deck.
Skill cards represent an investigator’s abilities. Skill
cards typically either give a bonus to a certain skill or
allow you to roll the dice again when you fail a certain
kind of dice roll. Skill cards are rare and expensive to
acquire.
Spells are magical rituals that an investigator can per-
form using the Lore skill.
Allies are people that offer to assist the investigators in
their adventures. Allies are the most powerful investiga-
tor cards and can be found either at Ma’s Boarding
House (a location on the game board) or through
encounters at some of the more dangerous and unstable
locations in Arkham.
Special cards represent unique privileges or obligations.
These include Retainers, Silver Twilight Memberships,
Bank Loans, Blessings, Curses, and Deputy of Arkham
cards. Special cards have a wide variety of effects.
ANCIENT ONE SHEETS
At the beginning of every
game of Arkham Horror,
the players randomly deter-
mine which Ancient One will
threaten the city. An Ancient
One sheet lists the powers,
combat statistics, and wor-
shippers associated with each
of these alien beings. See
“Ancient One Sheet
Breakdown” on page 19 for
full details.
DOOM TOKENS
Doom tokens are
placed on the doom
track on the Ancient
One sheet as new
gates open in
Arkham. When the
doom track is filled
up with doom tokens,
the Ancient One awakens!
On the back of each doom token is an elder sign icon.
When an investigator successfully plays an elder sign to
permanently seal a gate, a doom token is removed from
the Ancient One’s doom track, flipped over to its elder
sign side, and placed on the sealed location. Sealing a
gate using Clue tokens does not reduce the number of
doom tokens on the Ancient One’s doom track in this
manner. For more information on sealing gates with
both elder signs and Clue tokens, see page 17.
ANCIENT ONE CARDS
The larger cards included with Arkham Horror are
called Ancient One cards. These represent events that take
place within Arkham or the Other Worlds. These events
can include confrontations with monsters, beneficial
encounters, etc. There are three types of Ancient One
cards: Location cards, Gate cards, and Mythos cards.
Location cards represent the encounters that take place at
the various locations in Arkham. Each of the nine neigh-
borhoods on the game board has a deck of seven cards
dedicated to it, and each card has one encounter for each
of the locations in that neighborhood. For more informa-
tion on locations and neighborhoods, see page 21.
Gate cards represent the encounters that take place in
the Other Worlds. Unlike the Location cards, which are
divided into separate decks for each neighborhood, the
Gate cards are all shuffled together into one deck. For
more information on Other Worlds, see pages 8–9, 21.
Mythos cards depict major events in Arkham. One is
drawn each turn during the Mythos Phase. When a
mythos card is drawn, it has several effects. It identifies
a location where a gate opens, it determines monster
movement in Arkham, and it presents an event that may
affect the investigators. Most mythos cards also list a
location where a Clue token appears.
3
Common
Item
Unique
Item
Skill
Spell
Ally
Doom Token
Location
Gate
Mythos
Elder Sign Token
Silver Twilight
Membership
Bank
Loan
Retainer
Deputy of
Arkham
Blessing &
Curse