It hasn’t been all that long since I finished the Edge of the Earth campaign for Arkham Horror LCG, and here I am, planning my next foray into cosmic horror! I think there’s definitely something about this time of year, and this game, that just makes me want to keep playing.
The Dream-Eaters is the fifth campaign for the game, and came out starting in the autumn of 2019. Initially, I had stopped buying the game after The Circle Undone, so didn’t pay a great deal of attention to this one at the time, but then hurried to pick it all up a year later. I think I struck lucky because I managed to get it all just before things went mental, as the pandemic saw people getting into this game and packs disappeared.
The campaign is unique for containing, essentially, two mini-campaigns instead of one eight-parter. The story is that a fantasy novelist has had a disturbing dream, which he has written and published, whereupon hundreds of other people realise they had the exact same dream. The intrepid investigators decide to check it out, and recreate the circumstances under which this author had his dreams, and split into teams – one to delve into the dream-land, the other to stay and observe in the waking world. Apparently you can play either of the four-part campaigns as stand-alone, but I have opted for the big one, which therefore requires four investigators – two on each team!
It proved to be quite a challenge, in the end, building four decks from my card collection. Initially it seemed quite straightforward, as there are five investigator classes, so one from each should do it, but due to the way that things work in terms of multi-classing, I was trying not to let for example, Carolyn Fern step on Agnes Baker’s toes, as they both have Mystic cards. I don’t have a Survivor hero, but both Minh Thi Phan and Agnes have a good amount of Survivor cards. After enjoying Patrice Hathaway I had wanted to try out another Survivor initially, but upon building three female investigators, I wanted to stick with that and so went for a Survivor-heavy Minh instead. She’s actually an investigator that I had never previously had any interest in playing, but I’m now really interested in playing her. In fact, building these decks has shown me there are still plenty of investigators that I am keen to try!
I’m not sure how I want to pair them off just yet. I’m thinking I might follow the photo there, and go with Minh and Jenny in the dream-land, with Carolyn and Agnes in the waking world. However, Agnes has a backstory that would lend itself nicely to the dream-land, plus Jenny is probably more suited to more real-world adventures. I’m not sure if the decks would work well in that configuration, though I’m never sure if my decks will work regardless, so it’s probably a matter of luck, anyway!!
I’m probably going to start the campaign this week, as I am currently off work for the week, and I would like to try to play the game in paired sessions, to get both sides of the storyline. I don’t know if it actually runs like that, though, so it’ll be interesting!
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