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Forced - If Gloria Goldberg uses her ability and this treachery is among the looked-at cards, it must be chosen and placed facedown beneath her (if you cannot, discard a non-weakness card beneath her first). Then, if there are 3 copies of this treachery beneath her, she is defeated and suffers 1 mental trauma.

Ethan Patrick Harris
The Drowned City Investigator Expansion #16.
Prophecy of the End

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Reviews

Am I wrong to understand that the Forced effect is resolved for each copy of Prophecy of the end ?

Meaning that if you look at 3 cards AND are very unlucky you can be defeated by a single use of her capacity. In scenarios with thin encounter decks (The Untamed Wilds for example), I would seriously consider not using Gloria's capacity until there is a copy of Prophecy of the end in the encounter discard.

AlexP · 277
Since the effect only trigger while using her reaction ability, I believe it's saying that you HAVE to chose it as the card you would place beneath her, which you can only do once per usage of the ability. I don't think coming across multiple allows you to put multiple cards beneath you in one go. — MaleficMarby · 31
Hi!! — Piegura · 7
I'd say that the machanic in this case should be: Let's say you look at all 3 Prophecy in a single trigger of Gloria, and keeping in mind that her ability let's You choose 1 single card from them all -> 1 of these weaknesses must be chosen and putted beneath Gloria, and the other 2 must be discarded, triggering the "if You cannot, discard a non-weakness card beneath her first" part (pratically freeing You from the risk of being defeated + 1 mental trauma). — Piegura · 7
Indeed, it makes sense. — AlexP · 277

As written this weakness sounds scary (not many weaknesses have the power to instantly defeat an investigator after all), but the insta-kill clause should never fire if you know what you're doing.

Note that the Forced effect only triggers if Gloria actually chooses to use her when looking at the encounter deck. As such, I believe that it is entirely possible for Gloria to simply not use her ability when looking at the deck (e.g. with Parallel Fates (2) which allows reordering), then maneuver a Prophecy of the End to a favorable position (either making sure she gets rid of two at a time with Psychic Sensitivity, or more generally, someone draws it and surges into a card they can handle, making the deck safe until the next reshuffle).
You know how many Prophecies you've eaten, the content of the encounter discard pile is open information and Gloria's should limit you to taking one Prophecy at a time, so you always know whether you are at risk and can plan accordingly.

Regardless, this is still a weakness that can disrupt Gloria's game plan in two significant ways:

  1. Obviously, it stops Gloria from discarding dangerous encounter cards or removing them from circulation.
  2. Less obviously, as discussed in AlexP's review, Gloria can only take one Prophecy under her if multiple are seen in one , so based on my literal interpretation of the rules, she would have to activate the "if you cannot" clause on the other copy (copies) of Prophecy and release cards into the encounter discard pile earlier than she intended.

On the other hand, a liberal application of the Silver Rule would invalidate everything I've just said, as it can be said that the "it must be chosen" text on each Prophecy takes precedence over Gloria's "choose 1 non-Elite card". In that case she will be forced to take all 3 Prophecies and be instantly defeated if they all show up in a single look.
A ruling may be in order here, but even if this worst-case scenario turns out to be true, Gloria can simply hold back her full Mythos-controlling power for a while until the first Prophecy has shown up and is safely in the discard pile.

Either way, the threat of the Prophecy is mostly intangible - what it can potential do to you stops you from going fully willy-nilly against the encounter deck. This is a design choice I found wonderfully thematic - if I had a nickel for every cosmic horror protagonist that got hurt/mad/traumatized for life/etc. after delving too deep I would be richer than Preston after all. And that's not mentioning the absolutely gorgeous card art, quite possibly my favorite among all released cards so far.

Rules ambiguity and gushing over themes aside, at the end of the day Gloria is a 5 4 Mystic with unparalleled control over the encounter deck, and Prophecy of the End doesn't really do much to change either. This is an interesting and well-designed weakness (certainly way more thought-provoking than Liber Omnium Finium, which in practice often turns out to be nothing more than a repeatable dead draw) that requires some playing around, but I think it's still quite undertuned compared to Gloria's absurd power level.

koaexe · 31
It sounds to me that the terms "must be chosen" and "first" declare only ever one copy fires during a single use of her reaction ability, because she can also "choose" one in the first place and there would be no "second" to the "first". — AlderSign · 391
Since it's a treachery, you can also attach it to "fool me once" after you resolved it's effect. — Tharzax · 1
Fool Me Once doesn't help here, as it cancel revelation effects, but this one hurts you when you look at it,, not when you reveal it — OrionAnderson · 123
In a roundabout way Fool Me Once does help. With one Prophecy safely locked up under FMO the set can never be completed and Gloria is free to do her business. It's similar to how some decks would run specific counters to their weaknesses (e.g. NatCho + Handcuffs, Harvey + Versatile + Deny Existence), so that's a great catch and smart play. — koaexe · 31
Yeah, that actually solves it for good. You just have to make sure YOU draw it as Gloria without using your manipulation. This can be tricky. Only "Let me handle this!" and Antediluvian Hymn come to my mind on top of my head. — AlderSign · 391
Gloria's ability, like all reaction triggers, is optional, which means you can arrange to draw it using most of the effects Gloria would normally use, just without looking at an extra card. Or, of course, there's Eye of Ghatanothoa. — Thatwasademo · 58