Marion Tavares | Sanctifying Melody (29xp)

This is my attempt at exploring something new with Marion: using Soul Sanctification.

The idea is the following: what would normally be tempo negative -spending actions to overheal- becomes tempo positive when it triggers Marion's ability.

Our healing events are Ready for Anything, Second Wind and most importantly Soothing Melody which we hope to see many times by shuffling it back into the deck.

With Soul Sanctification, all these events are enabled from turn one when we have not suffered any damage or horror. I would argue that playing the Bold events is worth it even if you don't meet the (bonus) condition, as they replace themselves, trigger Marion's ability and put an offering on Soul Sanctification.

To make sure we never have to heal any actual damage or horror on our investigator card, we pack some serious soak with Spiritual Resolve. 3 copies should make it easy enough to draw the first one early. We also have Tetsuo Mori whose job is to die anyway to help us find Hallowed Mirror and our weapon.

This is the base combo and it requires 14 xp (Soul Sanctification, Spiritual Resolve & Hallowed Mirror). From here we can start leveraging the skill boosts we get from Soul Sanctification.

The gameplay loop is to trigger Marion's ability every turn by playing one healing event and one game progressing event. During a combat turn this could be Ready for Anything (gain 1 offering) + Improvised Weapon, or Sweeping Kick + Soothing Melody (gain 2 offerings). During an investigation turn this could be Second Wind (gain 2 offerings) + Winging It (spend offerings as needed) or Soothing Melody (gain 2 offerings) + Fortuitous Discovery (spend offerings as needed).

Repeatedly playing 1 cost events will quickly drain our resources, which enables Fire Axe (skill value boosted with Soul Sanctification and Enchant Weapon). Emergency Cache and Stand Together provide burst resources when needed.

True Awakening and Hunter's Mark are practically stapples in Marion.

Finally, the skill boost from Soul Sanctification can be used on treacheries (especially the ones testing ), as well as the various scenario tests you may face during a campaign.