Epilogue

Minh lifted herself to her feet and brushed sand off of her vest. She quickly looked around in an effort to gather her bearings. Once again, she had no idea where she was, but she was getting used to that feeling. After all, she had just survived a strange adventure across dimensions, using her wits to identify and defeat the Memetic Nemesis. And now, here she was still alive and standing… standing wherever here was. She seemed to be on some kind of empty beach. Empty save for her three companions. Kōhaku Narukami was catching his breath next to a tree, while Lily Chen seemed to be dragging an exhausted Nathaniel Cho out of the water. Minh adjusted her glasses and smiled a little bit. The sight of Nathaniel being dragged around out of danger had become a common one, but hopefully, with Memetic Nemesis defeated, there would never be another need for him to sacrifice so much for everyone again.

“Any idea where we are, Kōhaku?” Minh finally asked, approaching the folklorist.

“Oh, I know exactly where we are,” Kōhaku said. “I can feel it in my bones and smell it in the air. We’re back in Japan. My original homeland.”

“How wonderful it must be to feel such a connection with your homeland like that,” Minh said. She joined Kōhaku, resting against the tree and looking out into the sunset. “My childhood in Korea always felt so strange, like I was an outsider. And then in Arkham, sometimes I feel like an outsider again.”

“Funny use of outsider,” Kōhaku said, chuckling slightly.

“What do you mean?” Minh asked.

“Oh, the creatures that we faced on our journeys around the world and then when we crossed into that other dimension… those creatures were called Outsiders, too,” Kōhaku said. “And yet, I see nothing about you in common with them.”

Minh tilted her head to the side, thoughts of identity and childhood trauma suddenly also jostling around inside of her. “I guess you’re right, Kōhaku. I’ve never much thought about that.”

The pair’s conversation wound down as they watched Lily finally drop Nathaniel’s body onto the shore. “He’s fine!” Lily called out across the beach. “He’s just in one of his moods.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Nathaniel yelled, his back still flat on the sand.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Lily snapped back.

“Are you kidding me? What’s a man got to do to get some respect around here?” Nathaniel moaned. “I beat up most of the Red Coterie all by myself! I deserve a nap if I want one!”

Kōhaku laughed. “I’m surprised those two worked together as well as they did,” he muttered to Minh.

“We never did find the Holy Ancestor in the end, did we?” Minh asked.

“No, I think we did,” Kōhaku said. Minh raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but Kōhaku only smiled and pulled the Skeleton Key out of his pocket. “Remember this? Our little friend who helped us ascend that tower?”

“How could I forget?” Minh said.

“Look at this skull on the top,” Kōhaku said. “I’ve always believed it belonged to someone who wanted to help us. And to think here they are, quite literally watching over us on a key.”

“So you’re saying… you believe the Skeleton Key was the Holy Ancestor we were looking for this whole time?” Minh asked.

Kōhaku nodded and slipped the key back into his pocket. “I’m holding on to it and when we get back to Arkham, it’ll have an honoured place in my study. You’re free to come look at it whenever you like of course.”

“Of course,” Minh said, although she found it hard to believe that their search for the Holy Ancestor could end so simply. And yet Kōhaku, whom she trusted immensely, seemed fully convinced in his conclusion. Minh felt no need to argue with the man right now. But when she returned to Arkham, she would surely scour her books, just to help satisfy her lingering doubts. If the Skeleton Key was a holy relic in disguise perhaps Father Mateo or Sister Mary would be able to tell. Or perhaps Daisy Walker at the university could recognize it. Or maybe…

“Minh!” Lily called out.

Minh shook her head, freeing herself from her racing thoughts. Apparently, everyone had already gathered on a nearby pathway and she didn’t even notice.

“Minh, we can’t just stay on the beach forever. We got to figure out how to get home still,” Lily sad.

“Right, of course,” she said. Minh Thi Phan stood to her feet and rejoined her companions. Perhaps whether the Skeleton Key was the true Holy Ancestor or not didn’t really matter. What mattered the most was, after everything that had transpired, her team was together, safe, and as some would say, blessed.

Final Decks

I’m going to include a link to each investigator’s final deck on ArkhamDB.com for you to view, and then also include just a short summary on what I thought about the deck in the end. I won’t say too much because the previous scenario reports speak for themselves. Every deck ended up being strong — strong enough to get a good resolution on every scenario including the finale. But I will include any last thoughts for any players who may want to explore the archetype I played in the future.

Kōhaku Narukami

https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/49378/blessings-of-asia-statball-khaku-final-1.0

This was my first time playing Kōhaku, and I had an absolute blast. I do think that he would be way better on a team that is helping him generate bless & curse tokens. This is because he really wants to be consuming tokens to get those extra actions as frequently as possible. If no one else is generating tokens, he can still be great but I think your experience will vary sharply from what happened in my campaign. It helps that he has a solid statline, including 4 Intellect, and quite broad card access, so even if blurse doesn’t exactly take off for him, you can still get good work done. I felt that building up his stats was quite a reliable, albeit expensive, way of playing him. Overall, this investigator is definitely a powerhouse if you are running a Blurse team.

Nathaniel Cho

https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/49376/blessings-of-asia-bless-nathaniel-final-1.0

Ah, Nathaniel, my most played, comfort investigator. I love playing Nathaniel so much and, even though he was defeated twice, I feel Nathaniel still demonstrated how strong he is over the course of the campaign. With Radiant Smite, One-Two Punch and Sweeping Kick, Nathaniel was one-shotting large enemies all over the place. Not only that, his Bless generation was fantastic thanks to Tempt Fate & Ancestral Token. The Boxing Gloves bonus was so helpful not just for defeating enemies, but also for exposing enemies without worrying about running out of uses on a weapon or losing cards. In short, this campaign proved that Nathaniel can both generate and use Bless tokens extremely well, and I would absolutely want to keep exploring Bless Nathaniel in the future.

Minh Thi Phan

https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/49377/blessings-of-asia-dark-compass-minh-final-1.0

As much as I love the Dark Horse Compass cluever archetype, I will say in the end it did feel a little bit feast-or-famine. When it was all set up and working, it absolutely did great things for me. However, when you have one piece of the puzzle out and not the others, it is rather underwhelming. The swings this deck could go through were really quite jarring to me. Thankfully, I was able to pivot into shoring up Minh’s skill card strategy once I caught wind of that shortcoming. This was a really great change, as Minh’s skills with Ancestral Knowledge support did so much work for me. Esoteric Method not only helped us pass difficult tests, it also helped us add huge swings of curses, sometimes as high as 8 curses in one go. Deduction and Sharp Vision helped us pick up clues as well. In the end, this felt like a deck with two prongs of attack, and I’m glad it all came together in the end.

Lily Chen

https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/49374/blessings-of-asia-rabbit-hole-lily-final-1.0

At the outset of any Rabbit Hole Lily campaign, it does kind of feel like your deck is an assembly of random cards that just happen to be upgradable. But by the end of it, I thought this deck made a lot of sense and was super strong. I guess having effectively 9 bonus XP will help you achieve that. Blessed Blade and Enchanted Blade are both stellar weapons, especially in Scarlet Keys where you have to fight to expose constantly. Blessed Blade also did great to add tokens to the bag. Hunter’s Armor did a lot to keep the team safe as well. In the end, Lily ended up being a reliable fighter who could both bless the bag and soak huge amounts of damage and horror. What more could you really want? Oh, she also had 4 cancels in her deck. Overall, Rabbit Hole Lily proves that getting tons of XP can help smooth over weird initial deckbuilding and that it’s hard to lose when you have huge swords.

Conclusion

Alright, now we’re truly at the end of the Blessings of Asia series of articles! Thank you so much to all who have read these and given feedback on them. It makes me happy to hear that people are reading and enjoying these. I would hope to, at some point, take another swing at a series like this one, but I might take a break before doing it again. Until then, thanks again for reading, and I’ll look forward to bringing you in on my next Arkham adventure!