Dread Curse Daisy

Mary's hand fidgeted on the haft of her spear. It was beautiful, sturdy wood. Not ornate, not ostentatious. Just good and solid, and it exuded a sense of wholesomeness, of goodness.

Unlike the woman standing in front of the massive, sealed stone door. Mary had disliked her since the first moment that they met, disliked the sick, oily feeling of the air around her, disliked the way gaslamps dimmed and candle flames flickered as she passed. Daisy was not wholesome, and she was not good. And normally the profane was something Mary kept at the end of her spear, not right by her side.

But desperate times called for desperate measures, and Mary couldn't've gotten this far on her own. So she stood guard and let the witch work. Daisy raised her arms, and the sleeves on her leather duster slipped back enough to reveal some of the words tattooed in winding patterns along her skin. Mary averted her eyes–she had gone this far without reading the heretic tomes incorporated into Daisy's very skin, and she was not going to start now.

As Daisy chanted, the words almost writhed along her arms, her back, her legs, her scalp. The single runes on each cheek pulsed, and she felt the power of the seals on her body wrestling with the far darker power she kept locked inside her frame. Daisy had often heard it said, in her before-life, that reading a Mythos Tome changed you. She had often wondered idly, in her life after, whether becoming one changed you more or less than the reading thereof.

The locking spell unraveled at her words of power, and Mary's head popped up as the doors began to grind open–only for her to have to throw herself to the side as a massive gout of green witchfire burst out from the opening doors and lashed blazing scars throughout the stone room. Daisy never stood a chance, receiving the full force of the blast.

The fire cleared. Mary groaned and propped herself up on her spear. Her jaw dropped. Daisy stood unharmed before the doors, though her clothing hung tattered and scorched on her frame. Through the rips and tears Mary could see more of the shifting word-tattoos than ever before, and for a moment she felt as though something pure, something binding, flowed through those words, and she was struck with a rare pulse of doubt.

"No dark fire in the world burns hotter than the one within." Daisy said, with a smile both wry and sad, and then stepped through the doorway.

Hey everybody! I'd like to introduce another character I've had a wonderful time with–Dread Curse Daisy, who took me through my blind run of The Innsmouth Conspiracy!

Inspired by a recurring character from my playgroup's massive Eldritch Horror campaign, back before we started Arkham, Daisy is an expert occultist whose body contains an immense profane power. This power takes the form of a number of mythos tomes, both horrific and holy, that have been inscribed into her very skin, with the darker powers constantly at war with the lighter ones in an attempt to break free.

To control this dread power, she has incorporated a number of seals like Favor of the Moon and Blasphemous Covenant onto her body itself. But she's a pragmatist and no fool, so she has also trained herself to channel small amounts of the power within through cards like Tempt Fate, Promise of Power, and Fey.

Daisy's chief role is as a support counteracting the mythos deck. Between Ward of Protection, her Grimoire, and powerful boosts like Promise of Power, The Eye of Truth, and Fey, she can negate the worst draws and help her allies pass even difficult tests on the rest. But she's also no slouch at investigating with a base 5-6 and a suite of skills that help her compress and pass those high-shroud locations.

In my experience with her, there comes a point around the midgame or sooner when she can safely declare she won't be drawing another encounter card for the rest of the game, because she can accrue secrets that quickly on Grimoire or Twine. She's also very efficient at drawing through her deck, cycling multiple times per scenario.

All in all, the result is a powerful support cluever who is invisible and impervious to the mythos, able to pass even the difficult shrouds of a campaign like Innsmouth, and extremely effective at mitigating the negative effects of her curses by boosting allied stat values to the moon.

Will you accept a deal with the darkness? It can certainly pay off...