Introduction

Our campaign opens with Li Flint getting in touch with Kōhaku Narukami. Apparently, not only has Kōhaku taken note of the disappearances, Li Flint suspects that the folklorist may be of use in researching a different lead. There have been some rumours of a strange artifact called the Holy Ancestor – perhaps it is another Key, perhaps it is nothing at all. Still the Foundation is hoping for answers, and the only thing they have to go on so far is that all the rumors originate from and reference Asia. Kōhaku must be the right person for the job. On his own, Kōhaku hand picks three others who might be the right fit to accompany him. Lily Chen and Minh Thi Phan both grew up on the Asian continent, each bringing their own lived experiences which might help illuminate the mystery at hand. They also each had unique skills – Lily with her fists while Minh was equally adept with her books. And then, of course, there’s Nathaniel. Nathaniel is… well, he is a rough-around-the-edges boxer who happens to be Asian. Kōhaku isn’t sold on Nathaniel being able to help at all, but Minh assured him that Nathaniel is nothing if not dedicated and reliable. He’d be a great asset to the team and he’d surely blend right in with the group during their investigations. After considering his own physical limitations, Kōhaku realizes he can’t really be saying no to an offer of more muscle. The mission to investigate the Holy Ancestor does seem like it might be dangerous. With the crew finally locked in, the four intrepid investigators meet with Li Flint to begin their journey, starting in London.

RBWs

Okay, so before we go into the summary of the scenario, I want to quickly highlight everyone’s RBW’s because it is going to be very relevant.

Kōhaku – Amnesia

Amnesia just in general is one of the harshest RBW’s in the game. At worst, this can wipe out 7 cards from your hand, and Scarlet Keys is already attacking your hand so much. The Statball strategy Kōhaku is running often leads to situations where you are holding onto assets until you have the opportunity to play them. Amnesia can definitely blow that all up. I am definitely concerned about this weakness. 4 out of 5 on the RBW fear meter for this deck.

Nathaniel – Unspeakable Oath (Cowardice)

I actually got so mad when I saw I draw this. This card is so bad for Nathaniel, for this team and for this campaign in general. I guess the only positive to getting this is that on the final scenario, it doesn’t really do anything. However, until then, the fact this exists is a thorn in my side. I truly cannot reliably get rid of this. This entire team struggles with evasion, and for Nathaniel to evade an exhausted enemy when his Agility is 2? Yeah, no thank you. And a lot of enemies don’t even spawn normally in the first place. This card existing will definitely alter how much I go for card draws. If the scenario is winding down and I haven’t seen this, I may just refrain from drawing. Probably a 1 out of 5 on the fear meter for how much it actually harms me during the scenario but a 5 out of 5 on the fear meter how much it changes the way I approach the campaign. I will definitely have to change what XP cards I buy to allow myself to be able to clear this thing somewhat more reliably and prevent it from becoming a huge pain.

Minh – Dread Curse

I promise I did not cheat and hand pick Dread Curse here. It’s funny because this card could have been a player card and I might have just tossed it in anyway because it actually helps Kōhaku that this is here! Sure, sometimes I’ll fail because of curse draws, but I’m running curse cards anyway, so I had already accepted that as a possibility. 0 out of 5 on the fear meter, and I am actually stoked to see Dread Curse here.

Lily – Internal Injury

Ah, yes, Internal Injury, a very run-of-the-mill RBW that every Arkham veteran should know. Lily has decent health and with how tanky her build is, I’m not particularly worried about her being defeated because of this. I can just use two actions and I’ll be good to go. This is maybe a 1 on the fear meter.

Riddles and Rain summary

The scenario began and we were off to, well… we were off to a start. The most critical thing was that Nathaniel got both of his Tempt Fates in his opening hand. Meanwhile Kōhaku had Rite of Sanctification in his. This meant that if I arranged things right, I could have Kōhaku seal 5 Bless tokens on Rite of Sanctification pretty much immediately. The question then became how did I want to play it. I ended up going a little slow, by opting to do just one Tempt Fate from Nathaniel to start, followed by gaining a resource to play Tetsuo and Ancestral Token. Meanwhile, I let Kōhaku buy an extra action out the gate off of Nathaniel’s Tempt Fate, so he was able to start setting up Alyssa Graham and investigate.

Meanwhile, Minh got Dark Horse and Madame Labranche out. (It took her a little bit to get the Compass, which made the resource pool very awkward, but eventually it worked out.) Lily got an early Olive McBride and Holy Rosary. Eventually, she got an Enchanted Blade as well.

Then, we get to the first upkeep phase and things got weird right away. I don’t know if I failed to shuffle or what but my team drew 3 signature weaknesses pretty much immediately — Weeping Yurei, Tommy Malloy, and Burden of Destiny. Only Minh was spared. The weirdest thing about though is that the enemies being present actually helped me! First, I had Lily dispatch Weeping Yurei by engaging it and then blowing it up with Explosive Ward. Then, she helped hit Tommy one time.

This then led to one of the most outrageous turns I’ve had in Arkham. I had Nathaniel go to hit Tommy and he draw his Elder Sign. Tempt Fate was the only event in my discard pile – and remember that I still had the other Tempt Fate still in my hand. On the next hit, I defeated Tommy, which let me add 3 more Blesses to the bag because of Ancestral Token. I then immediately played both Tempt Fates to have Nathaniel add NINE BLESSES & SIX CURSES to the bag on the second round of the first scenario. This then led to what I called The Kōhaku Juice Era, as Kōhaku immediately went ahead and sealed 5 of those blesses on to Rite of Sanctification, which we eventually used to help Minh finally play out her Compass!

Let me just share a fun fact about Kōhaku — if you get to play three Tempt Fates at the opening of the game, you are just set. Statball Kōhaku then proceeded to do exactly what I wanted him to do, which was get extra actions while investigating with his buffed Intellect. Meanwhile, Minh was doing pretty good too — not popping off as hard as Kōhaku but still good. We definitely advanced the Act before the Agenda every time at the outset of the scenario. We also cleared all the victory point locations, with Kōhaku using the Blesses off of Rite of Sanctification to pay for Read the Signs on high shroud locations.

We did get a great bit of luck in finding the Red Gloved Man on the second mini card flip during the second Act. I had Kōhaku and Minh run off to vacuum up clues, with Nathaniel as bodyguard. Meanwhile Lily camped out in the middle of the map and ultimately she was the one who got him. Even though there was also an Obscuring Fog on the location where she was, I just had this personal premonition that he might be in the spot. And lo and behold, that’s where he was, so I’m glad I tested my theory! We got lucky another time with the decoys at the very beginning, as we cleared an early Coterie Agent on the first try, as well.

As the scenario went on, between natural Bless draws and Kōhaku actions, we did eventually run out of Bless tokens. Then, we drew Apocolyptic Presage, a 5 health enemy. Guess what? Nathaniel blew it up with an automatically successful test by playing Toe to Toe with two copies of Vicious Blow committed, and then he triggered his Ancestral Token to add five more Blesses to the bag! I didn’t count how many Blesses Nathaniel added in total (I kind of wish I did) but he added by far the most.

Ultimately, Kōhaku and Minh quite easily wiped the map of clues and then we all migrated to the Tower of London. This part of the scenario was a game of patience as I was very sure that my cluevers could get all the clues necessary to move things along. All it would take was time. That meant I just had to carefully manage my fighters so that no harm came to anyone while also not running out of firepower themselves. Nathaniel got really sketchy for a moment in all this as he hit one or two cards a few times, but thankfully, the scenario didn’t smack him too hard for hitting that point. I was worried about drawing too much because I really didn’t want to draw into Unspeakable Oath, but I mercifully didn’t see it.

Eventually, everyone made their way to the Tower Prison, which turned into a huge pile of concealed mini cards. It had eight, then Lily cleared two, and then we had to add three more…. it was a mess. But this is where I think Nathaniel really shines in Scarlet Keys. The passive bonus on Boxing Gloves is really great at helping you expose cards. A super lucky guess let me pull The Red Gloved Man early. It was so early I was not fully prepared for how to handle this fight. But then I reviewed my hand and I realized that it was definitely within reach. I played a One Two Punch followed by a Monster Slayer and with some commits, I was able to deal six damage quickly. Only two more damage was needed to defeat the Red Gloved Man and win the scenario, and Nathaniel had just drawn into Toe to Toe, which meant I could get that damage with an automatic success.

However, let’s not forget that Tower Prison is a victory point location and my cluevers needed something to do! So Kōhaku and Minh were not about to be left out of all the action. They tried so hard to get the clues as quickly as Nathaniel was attacking the Red Gloved Man. Unfortunately, some bad calls on my part led to 2 clues being left on the location. I tried really hard to use a cheeky Overpower from Lily to attempt to draw into a copy of Drawn to the Flame. Perhaps Lily could get the last two clues! Alas, the test failed after I drew 2 Curse tokens in a row.

At this point, Nathaniel had to make a choice… and he chose not to end the game so that we could have one more round to get that last victory point! He absorbed another hit from the Red Gloved Man, dodged drawing Unspeakable Oath again (!!), and then waited to see if the encounter deck would ruin the team’s gamble. Ultimately, the additional Mythos draws didn’t amount to much. My cluevers were able to seal the deal – every clue on Tower Prison was accounted for. Once that was done, it was time for Nathaniel to guarantee the last damage needed & use Toe to Toe to close out the scenario. A big R1 win for the squad, along with 5 victory points in the victory display!

Kōhaku ended up taking the Eye of Ravens, as he is the only one with a base stat of a 1 anywhere (Agility). This means he stands to benefit the most from having access to this if he’s forced to pass a critical Agility test.

MVP

It’s definitely between Kōhaku and Nathaniel, but I’ve got to give it to Nathaniel for his insane Bless generation which allowed Kōhaku to pop off with extra actions and a full Rite of Sanctification. Also can’t forget both exposing and dealing all the damage to the Red Gloved Man in the final act.

Conclusion

And that brings us to the end of the first scenario! So far, so good. Pretty much everyone did want I wanted them to do, which feels great. I do have a couple areas to shore up with XP though. Minh’s Dark Horse resource pool works most of the time but needs to quite a bit more reliable. I had a really difficult time getting Dig Deep out — and then after I did, it got discarded by a treachery anyway. This meant I was often missing one of the money sinks for her to hit zero resources on demand. I’ll have to review some of the options to help her hit this more reliably. Lily did okay but she didn’t really contribute to the Bless strategy that was going on. I never really got a Bless card on the table. If I get her upgraded cards out, hopefully that will change.

Next time, I will go through our travel locations plus our XP choices. I hope you all enjoyed this article! Until next time.