This card seems a bit too strong with The Necronomicon and Scroll of Secrets. Since you can easily search both tomes with Research Librarian, the combo seems too easy to get going for how strong it is.

If you throw in some secret recovery like Truth from Fiction or Eldritch Sophist you can easily recharge Scroll of Secrets.

You could also add Knowledge is Power and Library Docent if you want even more necronomicon action. Library Docent also works as a nice way to recharge Scroll of Secrets.

Can't believe it took me this long to notice and correct me if I'm wrong, but this card seems fully Diana Stanley jank-enabled similar to Delay the Inevitable and "Fool me once...". With the Twilight Blade out, she can play this card from underneath her every round and then cancel damage or horror and place it back underneath her to recur the resource while drawing a card. Even better, Diana can take some of the Guardian allies that deal themselves damage or horror like Beat Cop or Field Agent to create a nice self sufficient card draw engine while testlessly getting clues and/or damage pings. On top of that, as these are all actions, they can very easily be done outside of the phases where you have played your other cancel cards since Diana's ability is a limit once per phase . Of course you'll need a charge battery that can help you keep enough charges in play to do this every turn but there are some useful options for that like the Runic Axe or the new Drowned City card Lost Arcana.

edit I think since these allies take damage/horror as a cost, the combo can't use them for their actions and would only end up generating card draw, which while nice is probably not worth heavily building around.

So Wendy Adams only benefits from this weakness? With her Amulet, she can cycle her new event sub-deck and never draw Fine Print back. It feels like those fairy tales where ordinary people deceive the devils

This card is also a good asset for William Yorick as he can recycle the card in and out of his graveyard into rebirth loops and replay the necklace again after an elder sign or ability to grab it from the discard pile like Resourceful or Scavenging. My group didn't have this when I first played Yorick and will consider it next time!

I absolutely adore this card because it mitigates a core problem of this game that has existed since Dunwich: investigator death.

In the past, if you failed certain scenarios, were an unlucky Charon's Obol bearer, were Doomed, or just suffered enough trauma to kill or drive your investigator insane, you would have to restart mid to late campaign with a deck that is severely under-leveled for the scenarios you would be playing into. I’m sure at many tables, players opted instead to just be flexible with the rules in these tense moments (“oh did we remember to hunt with that enemy last round?” looks at damage on investigator card “yeah I’m sure we did”).

With Ascetic, it’s still not good, but it’s significantly less painful to have to start over with a fresh investigator late in a campaign. This is exactly the power level this card ought to be at because we still want death to feel bad, but not so bad that the campaign feels derailed or that players have to fight off the urge to cheat.