Pete & Jenny: Pay to Win (World Tour)

What started as a normal Carcosa run quickly became something more when Pete and Jenny quickly realized they were doing uncharacteristically well. These characters made their way through The Path to Carcosa, Curse of the Rougarou, Carnevale of Horrors, Guardians of the Abyss, and Night of the Zealot. By the end of all this, Pete had accumulated 4 physical trauma and 3 mental trauma. The Jenny deck can be found here:

https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/10322/jenny-pete-pay-to-win-world-tour-1.0

Rather than go for a Dark Horse build I decided to instead go for one where extra resources are used to pay for upgrades. Plucky and Scrapper provide full coverage towards all tests, which is always comforting. The strategy was pretty much always: split up, cover more ground, and if you see an enemy, kill it and trust that your partner will do the same. Cards were being discarded often to ready Duke so there was never a second thought spending an action grabbing a card or a resource, as either would end up being useful later down the road.

Internal Injury was a real annoying weakness to end up with alongside Wracked by Nightmares. The tempo hit was always annoying and absolutely needed to be removed ASAP.

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World Tour Campaign Notes

Note: There are some spoilers in the descriptions of scenarios below for The Path to Carcosa, Curse of the Rougarou, Carnevale of Horrors, Guardians of the Abyss, and Night of the Zealot.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 1: Curtain Call

Jenny was perceptive and found a flashlight early on that helped her immensely. Her courage and confidence allowed her to pick up clues quickly on one side of the theater while Duke sniffed out the clues on the other half. Jenny successfully investigated the creep in the mask to death the first time he showed up. When he came back she threw a stick of dynamite then jumped out the window. The explosion took out both Mr. Mask and that giant monstrosity (who had been weakened by Duke). Not wanting to risk jail time, Jenny and Pete decided not to go to the police.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 2: Echoes of the Past

Jenny started off with her fancy blazer in hand and as soon as she put it on she was able to quickly charm two guests before her jacket just sort of disintegrated. Her stalker made an appearance but he was quickly dealt with. Just when Jenny was getting into her grove, her paranoia got the better of her and caused her to lose 14 resources. While Jenny and Pete failed to get information from two of the bystanders before they transformed, they were able to find every clue in the house. Jenny even decided to ask around about her sister while she was at the party. Even with all that done, Duke refused to leave until he had bitten the throat of every last lunatic, and that is exactly what he did.

The Path to Carcosa - Interlude 1: Lunacies Reward

I mean, we had to go back in and make sure we weren't just seeing things...

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 3: Echoes of the Past

Went by surprisingly smoothly. Some lucky draws during the mythos phases made it so that we didn't have to worry about doom too much. We were able to quickly investigate our way to victory, but not before Duke killed an agent and granted us an extra VP. Jenny even found a fancy piece of jewelry.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 4: The Unspeakable Oath

Once again, a surprisingly smooth ride. We split up and Jenny raised hell in the kitchen and outdoors while Pete and Duke took care of the basement. We made it to the exit with a bit of time to spare when suddenly the worst happened... Jenny decided that she needed to check the basement for her sister. This could not have come at a worse time. Pete had what we came for and left while Jenny went back to the basement to look for Izzie. After satisfying her curiosity, a lucky draw allowed her to bolt to the exit at record speed.

With Daniel safe, we started to read the interlude when we realized that it said he was unresponsive for a few days. That is when Pete decided to visit New Orleans to investigate some things he had been hearing about...

Note: We actually gained three experience in Scenario 4, but I only marked down two since we had to pay one to start Curse of the Rougarou.

Side-story: Curse of the Rougarou

Since Pete is the one who wanted to go, he took the lead in this investigation.Not long after he arrived he started feeling funny, which terrified Duke and caused him to run away (Pete found him later). Eventually Peter Sylvestre came by to reassure everyone that Pete's hunger pains were nothing to be scared of. Pete spent a lot of time dealing with enemies which didn't allow him to gather as many clues as he normally does. Jenny on the other hand was going all over the place, using her training and street smarts to grab a trap and a binding stone. She even managed to get a sneak attack in on the The Rougarou. In the end we were able to calm the beast down and Pete learned to control himself. Jenny did come incredibly close to dying (both by horror and damage) which led her to wonder if it might not be worth it to carry around some form of healing herself.

The Path to Carcosa - Interlude 2: Lost Soul

When we came back from New Orleans Daniel finally got coherent and told us what the hell was going on. Jenny and Pete had been pretty doubtful about all this "cursed play" mumbo jumbo but seeing as how Pete had become a literal werewolf, they figured it was best to just believe Daniel and heed his warning.

Note: We actually gained three experience in Interlude 2, so I didn't mark any down since we had to pay three experience to start Carnevale of Horrors.

Side-story: Carnevale of Horrors

Pete's wanderlust got the better of him again and so we went to Venice. We were doing well at the start and managed to save one Innocent Reveler who quickly proceeded to die. Some unlucky pulls from the chaos bag quickly put us close to death, when suddenly Pete found a Hiding Spot. We were able to get the other two reveler's to safety and quickly ran to the gondola. Pete went full beast mode and along with Jenny's strong rowing ability, they were able to take turns rowing to safety. Jenny and Pete also each bought a snazzy mask before heading off to Paris.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 5: The Unspeakable Oath

Things went pretty well to start, with Jenny remembering to wind her watch which ended up giving us some extra time (although Jenny drew two tentacles during her extra turn, which was clearly the universe being upset with her). Jenny and Pete split up to cover more ground and eventually enemies started to pop up. Jenny came to realize how disadvantaged she was as a result of not carrying any weapons. She was eventually able to kill a winged beast across two turns using the incredibly inefficient combination of evading, Sneak Attack, Elusive and Dynamite Blast. Pete ate a rumble ball to help him with combat. All in all we were never sweating too too hard and managed to make it through with plenty of time to spare. Once we finally found Nigel what happened next left us permanently mentally scarred. :(

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 6: The Pallid Mask

Jenny and Pete split up to cover more ground and ended up exploring the whole cave in a very short amount of time. While Jenny never physically drew Paranoia, she was still very much playing in fear of it, constantly spending her money to pump Streetwise each turn to avoid the risk of wasting any money to the weakness. Once the big baddie came out though Pete quickly got overwhelmed between the Specter of Death and a Corpse Dweller. Pete evaded and attacked as best he could with his wolfman powers while Jenny ran over as quickly as she could. Together they were able to finish the two enemies off and make it to safety.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 7: Black Stars Rise

Pete and Jenny once again split up to cover more ground. Of course we decided to go all in on the top path and it ended up being the wrong way. We managed to fight everyone off and get to Carcosa through the water though. Jenny's switchblade was fantastic in helping deal with enemies and she regretted not picking it up earlier.

The Path to Carcosa - Scenario 8: Dim Carcosa

Jenny came in ready with her physical training and Twin .45s and thus was able to bring them out with lots of ammo and boost them as needed. Scenario went pretty well, with Pete going beat mode and shooting a flare at the beast who shall not be named (Jenny slipped up once and accidentally said his name). In the end they made it out in one piece but left with some permanent scares (two physical trauma).

Side-story: The Eternal Slumber

Seeing as how we were already abroad, Jenny contacted some of her friends in Egypt to se how they were doing. Turns out there was some cult or something and people falling asleep. Jenny and Pete went to go help out (they had just defeated the Lord of Carcosa, how tough could this new threat be? Turns out, very tough. Pete had pulled out all the stops and had Peter watching his back while he let the full moon do its thing and he still came close to losing Duke, Peter and himself to the abyss. Jenny and Pete were just barely able to defeat the big baddy, and Jenny decided to spare her in exchange for some jewelry. It didn't feel like a particularly successful victory, because outside of an assassin that got too close, we didn't manage to get to any other members of the brotherhood.

Side-story: The Nights Usurper

Jenny and Pete had a bad feeling about this scenario from the start. The abyss had a power of four and there were five members of the brotherhood still out there. They were able to quickly explore and investigate and managed to get to the Dreamlands before the brotherhood caught up to them. The abyss took Duke right before that causing Pete to go crazy, breaking stuff and slaughtering prisoners. Jenny eventually got knocked out by Xzharah, and Pete, with his final breath, pledged his loyalty in order to keep Jenny safe. Given that there was no way to kill these beasts in his current state, he figured he would bide his time until he could figure out a way to bring Duke back. The sword he was given was a cold comfort, and Jenny and Pete decided it was time to head back home to Arkham.

Night of the Zealot - Scenario 1: The Gathering

Pete and Jenny were ready to come home and just relax. But then they heard about some people getting killed and figured they would look into to finally be able to retire. They were investigating in Jenny's house when things started going sideways. Jenny was investigating and doing her best to handle enemies and gather clues while Pete also did his best, but the loss of Duke and his lack of any weapons made it difficult. In the end they were able to just barely defeat the Ghoul Priest with the help of Lita Chantler. Jenny, being the rich girl she is, didn't hesitate to burn her house.

Night of the Zealot - Scenario 2: The Midnight Masks

Pete packed more weapons and got his bow out at the start. Jenny focused on gathering clues while Pete killed everything with his bow. Lita made an early appearance as did Leo De Luca which together allowed Pete and Jenny to cover more ground and even kill Nightgaunt's with a single arrow. They got close to getting all the cultists but the final one spawned too far away to reach in time so Pete and Jenny decided to leave before midnight.

Night of the Zealot - Scenario 3: The Devourer Below

Both Pete and Jenny decided to double down on weapons before entering the forrest because neither believed they could actually stop the summoning without the help of Duke.They tried anyway though, but didn't make it very far before they got overwhelmed and had to focus on enemies. Pete once again had his bow while Jenny took the twins out to play. By the time they took care of the enemies around them they had two turns left until the final agenda advanced. Jenny pulled out the Chicago Typewriter and threw some extra bullets in it while Pete showed his true power. Umôrdhoth only managed to get a single hit in on Jenny before getting killed. With the threat vanquished, Pete and Jenny were able to finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe.