Descendant of Eibon:
The Making of a Champion's Card

by Jim Black

The Championship
(The Dream Becomes Reality)

When I won the 2007 Call of Cthulhu GenCon World Championship, a little more than a year ago, I was somewhat surprised. There were a lot of worthy, powerful decks there, but somehow my deck had come out on top. I had not given a lot of thought to the card I wanted to design — it seemed silly to really think about such a thing when it might never happen. At the 2006 World Championship, I had finished in second place, which I felt was a pretty good accomplishment in its own right. To think that I would be back in the Finals next year, or any year, was by no means a certainty. Deck designs are constantly evolving and improving. So, winning it all was a dream come true.

The next morning, after the surprise of the thing had worn off a little, I started thinking about what kind of card to design. The first things that I decided was that I wanted a character card and that I wanted it to interact in the Story Phase. After all, the stories are the heart of the game and its primary win condition is winning three stories. The hot decks at the time — Infinite Discard and Rip-Off — had gotten away from the concept of winning stories. I wanted to change that, if only in a small way, with my own card. The question was, How?

THE CARD — Version I (A Wizard Walks By…)

I decided that I wanted my character to be a wizard, or at least to have wizard-like powers. I looked through some sourcebooks and eventually settled on Eibon, mainly because it was short and easy to spell. I have since been told that Eibon is a derivative of the word black, which makes it a very fitting choice. But I didn't want it to be Eibon himself — much like previous championship cards, I wanted my character to be related to Eibon in some way. Eventually, I settled on the Descendant of Eibon. Being descended from the centuries-old wizard would tone down his powers a bit and bring him into the modern era.

For the artwork, I originally wanted Patrick McEvoy, who had designed the previous two champion cards and had done some very fine work for the game. However he was unavailable, so Nate recommended Henning Ludvigsen. Henning had done some very good work for Call of Cthulhu (Change of Seasons in particular sticks out in my mind) and he had designed the box art for the Dunwich Horror boardgame. Henning required a few photographs of me. One was the picture that John Hartigan took of me at GenCon and then he wanted a few that showed the play of light and shadows over my face. You can see the results and judge for yourself.

My original intention was to pattern the DoE after the previous two championship cards, but tailored to the Story Phase. He had 3 skill and 3 cost, just like the previous cards. I gave him three icons (Combat, Arcane, Investigation). He had Willpower to protect him from insanity, and a Disrupt ability that would allow you to remove a success token from one of your stories to return him back to your hand. As an action, once per turn, he could pay 1 to place a success token on a story that he was committed to. It was a beast of a card — perhaps too much so.

I had purposely designed it extra powerful, figuring it could be toned down a bit during playtest. But making a character whose primary goal is to aggressively attack stories is walking a fine line, design wise. Make it too powerful and it wins stories faster than your opponent can react, ruining the play experience. Make it too weak and it becomes unplayable. As soon as it was shown to the playtesters, there were concerns. There were debates over the icons (whether a character that could generate a success token should have an Investigation icon, or be able to ready with an Arcane icon and attack stories on both players' turns.). The idea that this card could generate four success tokens per turn was a worry. It was particularly worrisome that the card was non-unique — imagine four of these guys running around generating success tokens rapid fire! But of course, the main concern was the ability to pay 1 and generate a success token at a story the DoE was committed to. It was too easy. There were suggestions to raise the cost to 2, or to have the ability trigger only if you won a specific icon struggle at the story. There were several other ideas. Basically, before the dust settled, the card looked very little like my initial conception and it didn't sit well with me, so I began to look at alternate ways of accomplishing my goal of having a character that was powerful in the Story Phase.

THE CARD — Version II (Enter the Dragon)

While pondering a new way to go with my card design (and knocking the release back from AP5 to a later Asylum Pack) I thought back to a card mechanic I had first encountered in A Game of Thrones. House Targaryen (The House of the Dragon) had a few characters that could enter play in any phase (for a cost), do their thing and then jump back into hand at the end of the phase. The opponent would never be certain whether they were safe from an ambush attack or not, and this could heavily influence how they committed characters on offense and defense. I felt that this was just the mechanic that my card could use. I pictured my character teleporting into the battle (appearing out of nowhere), laying waste to his enemies, and disappearing before anyone knew what had hit them. It seemed like something a wizard could do and it would definitely impact the Story Phase in a big way. I incorporated the idea into my new card design and decided to use success tokens as the currency by which the DoE would accomplish his goal of appearing and disappearing from the game. It was a new way to pay for an ability, and fitting for one whose powers meddle with the fabric of the universe.

Along the way, a few other things were changed. He gained a fourth icon and the Fast keyword (making his ambushes even more deadly). His disrupt and action abilities were morphed into one action that would allow him to move from the discard pile into hand or from hand into play at the cost of a success token. He gained the Transient keyword, allowing him to be useful on Turn 1 when you do not have any success tokens to fuel him with. Happy indeed, the town at night whose wizards are all ashes!

Versatility (Not Just a Pretty Face)

Despite my intention of having a design that focused mainly on the story phase, the card has a lot of versatility to it. You can resource him early in the game to get a key card out faster, knowing you can retrieve him via a recursion effect or by paying a success token. You can discard him to help your Mentor to Vaughn out. You can play him for three cost, or you can put him into play, during any phase, for a success token. Played well, his Investigation icon can get you back the token you just spent to play him, making him almost free to play. He comboes well with the newer Wilbur Whateley, as Wilbur's success tokens work just as well as the ones from stories. If you put him into play, he returns to hand before nasty effects, such as Nodens, Lair of the Deep Ones, Forced Entry, or A Single Glimpse can trigger. The first time he ambushes an opponent, he is likely to do a lot of damage to the opposing team. But even after that, the threat of him appearing will change the way your opponent commits characters to stories on his turn. And anything that makes your opponent work harder is good for you.

I hope you enjoy playing with the Descendant of Eibon as much as I enjoyed designing him. While he lacks the raw power of the Assistant or the Mentor, his versatility and superiority at stories should make him a strong consideration for any deck.