Dim Carcosa Review
At last, we arrive at the end of this journey, Dim Carcosa, and the end of this series. For now at least. As always, we give a short spoiler free overview, then explore the player cards before moving on to a full spoiler discussion of goings on and mechanics.
Did you make it this far? Then perhaps there is still opportunity to end the madness before some greater nightmare takes hold. Though now you rest upon the shores of Dim Carcosa, sanity is the least of your worries.
This scenario broke me. Not simply because it is hard, though it is. But because of one horrifically perfect encounter card. I was in total hysterics – both my character and I going insane together. And because it was a peril card I couldn’t explain what was going on to my investigative partner. Which only made it funnier.
Once again, the imagination and creativity of the designers is out in full force as you race to close the gate. But even in victory the resolution is… ambiguous. Another multi-stranded scenario, Dim Carcosa ties together the threads running through this campaign in a range of ways. I don’t know if such an end will be satisfying or frustrating to most players, but it is the perfect end given the source material.
The Path to Carcosa cycle has been an absolute triumph. I thought Dunwich Legacy was great, but it pales into insignificance when sat beside this. The story and the way it succeeds in making you doubt what you are reading has been an absolute joy to experience. The shear number of variations in how scenarios could play out across a campaign is astonishing. It feels far more replayable than Dunwich. While there are one or two scenarios that felt a little like filler, the vast majority are not just great, they are some of the very best scenarios this game has produced! An all round step up for already one of the best games in existence. I’m feeling pretty excited by the new Forgotten Age cycle now!
Rating: The King in Yellow
Player Cards
Oh Ys. Key of Ys earns its own paragraph all to itself. What an utterly amazing, ludicrous, hilarious card. If you set it up right. Key of Ys boosts your ENTIRE statline up to +3 before it is lost. However, there are enough cards out there for controlling horror that its potential loss is absolutely mitigable. Peter Sylveste, say. However you do need both consistent horror control and ways of gaining horror and, ideally, a way of getting the Key out as early as possible. For full effect it needs some intentional deck building, although even without it is pretty damn sweet! Also, is this card foreshadowing of the next campaign? Maybe it’s just me but it seems to fit the aesthetic of The Forgotten Age. Definitely the Key of Yes.
The last cards in a mythos cycle are always exciting. A full set of experience cards with often some supremely powerful toys. The Rogues get some awesome cards this time round. The Lupara is a fantastic weapon, perfect for dropping and blasting some big beasty out of the blue. Ideally something with 6 health! Cheat Death is another great card, not only getting you out of trouble but healing you a little bit too! Finally Charon’s Obol is such a cool card! Either earning you a ton of experience or killing your character outright should you be defeated in a scenario! High risk, high reward! I love it.
Let’s do the Time Warp again…! A cool card, letting you undo those terrible misfortunes and mistakes, those nasty draws from the chaos bag. It even works for other investigators. The Seal of the Elder Sign is a suitably epic final card with great potential, but mostly just for investigators with particularly powerful elder sign abilities. I’ll be honest, I much prefer No Stone Unturned for a 5 XP card as it makes your seeker the ultimate support character. The other investigators in your campaign will love you. Eidetic Memory is a really interesting one, letting you play any previously played event. This obviously gets more versatile the more investigators you have in the game, but also handy for re-triggering a favourite event from your own deck… like No Stone Unturned, say!
Sadly, the Survivor and Guardian cards don’t quite live up to the promise of the rest of the pack. Armor of Ardennes is epic, but not really a priority for already very healthy guardians. “Eat Lead!” is super useful for those attacks you absolutely need to hit, but isn’t really as nice as Time Warp or possibly even Seal of the Elder Sign from this very pack. Newspaper is… more Newspaper. Fine, but not exactly exciting. Infighting is… fine? But for 3 XP it really could have done with being better. It’s normally the Elite enemies you have to worry about, after all.
Spoiler Discussion
Do you remember all the way back to our escapades at the asylum in Unspeakable Oath. Or more appropriately, the final resolution, the threat that believing Daniel’s ravings held over you? Don’t say His name? That hadn’t really come up much since. I was starting to feel disappointed. But now I know they were just waiting for this one!
Barely a paragraph of text goes by without mention of him, so watch your tongues! It’s such a wonderfully hilarious addition to the scenario, and not so unfair as it might be, thanks to the scenario special rule, as it were. That you can take an unlimited amount of horror this game: sanity is meaningless in Carcosa! So damn thematic!
Unfortunately, many effects, from event cards and enemies, only become worse if you have more horror than sanity. All too likely, you will lose your mind, and then lose your body through a brutal battle of attrition. Or fall into one of the truly spectacular trap encounters, as I did.
When this jumped out of the deck I was only one or two sanity away from the insta-kill line and too far away from the other investigators to get rid of it before I took the remaining horror. I know some people might find such a card unfair, but the scene was too hilarious for me to begrudge. Especially as how my spontaneous laughter was freaking out my fellow player; exactly as it should!
If this all sounds a little brutal then, well, it is. But there is some relief to be found in this landscape of nightmares. Enclaves of tranquility where small actions can help restore your agonised mind to some semblance of peace. These effects, along with many others, are on the reverse of some of the myriad location cards that, in a twist of architecture so befitting a strange realm, all start face up unlocked. Open to your gaze. But what you discover on the reverse, only once all clues have been removed, are story segments and immediate effects that perhaps bring clarity, or perhaps only more questions.
What is the truth behind the reverberating impact of the play and what is your role in it here, and now? These concerns, while central to everything are also secondary to simple survival. Especially when He makes his presence known.
Hastur (Argh! I said it!) is this campaign’s big bad but in keeping with the ever intangible nature of this campaign, it’s not a straight up fight. Certain locations when fully searched apply damage to Hasty, as though simply knowing more destroys his power. In fact, this may be the only way to damage him, depending on which version you face.
Ultimately both the truth, as you see it, and the enemy you face is determined by your own convictions and doubts. This value determines which version of the 2nd act you reveal, how you must face down the final iteration of the Stranger, just how… corporeal Hastur turns out to be, and what the winning resolution is. There is no definitive answer to this mystery. In one way or another, it is entirely in your head.
Just what does that resolution say about you? So many of the decisions that lead to doubt or conviction come down to faith, in the narration, in your character. There’s no right or wrong answer and because the choices you are presented with are so open it becomes a window on your own biases and leanings. A peak behind your own curtain.
More doubt than conviction? The stranger was nothing more than a figment of your imagination and, with victory, returns you to your seat in the theatre. Your doubts were right all along. But what if your conviction was stronger? Then of course Hastur is a physical force, and victory returns you from whence you left, in the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. The threat was always real – you knew it! But what if you’d avoided being pulled one way or another, had never committed at all? Then do you find the deeper truth that all along you were the Stranger? Or is this just the inevitable explanation to one so indifferent to the events that played out before you.
That so much is left open is so delightfully different to anything else that has come before it in this game, or in any other that I am aware of. And it has been delivered with such style and to such affect that my own feelings mirrored that of my character throughout the campaign, my doubts and convictions rising and falling as the scenarios went by. Consider me fully possessed by this case. I can’t wait to explore the next.
Our copy of Dim Carcosa was provided for review by Asmodee UK. You can pick up a copy for £14.99 RRP from your local hobby store.
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