“My money, my legacy, my problem. Let me handle it in my own way."

Me and a buddy did a Diana/Preston run of the TCU. I must’ve read that quote a dozen times on his player card. And it’s absolutely true.

You can’t play Preston like other investigators, that’s clear from his stat line. Decades of indolence have left the millionaire dumber, slower, weaker and less willful than almost anyone else investigating the mythos. He doesn’t even use guns, finding most of the rogue illicit weapons too distasteful to consider.

But the years have left him far better at accounting. And whether you’re on the university campus or somewhere in space and time, being rich is all the power you need. Well Connected and Money Talks came with his set. Recent additions like dark ritual and faustian bargain mean that he can pay off his teammates and take care of the fallout indefinitely.

Once you get XP, you can use Lola and Delilah to buy your way to victory. Don’t forget an old key ring or other tools that let you lower the shroud of locations, those give you discounts.

But even with those bonuses, you’re gonna be facing tests you have no business passing. You might go with the Dark Horse route, convincing everyone you're an underdog while still taking family money. But that gets your stats to two, you’re still not gonna pass those willpower tests... But as a rogue, you don’t have to. Let the mystics play their upgraded wards of protection. First Watch and "I’ll handle this" are helpful from guardians. And you can always kick your feet up and say "You handle this one!". (Ironically, when I was playing with my buddy, Diana had a mob enforcer weakness. The easiest solution was always to have Preston pay him off for a single action.)

When you play as the millionaire, everything that you need can be bought. Cards that were once useless extravagances, like hard knocks or dig deep, let you pay to win.

So should you go rich or play dark horse? Take Ally cards with let me see that and Chance Encounter? Will you slot haste, grab the skeleton key?

It’s your legacy, your money, your problem. Go handle it your own way.

Lola Santiago is incredibly powerful in a Preston Fairmont deck. I’d say she’s an auto-include.

With Preston’s Family Inheritance Lola lets Preston discover one clue per turn on a shroud 4 or lower (5 or lower if he’s a Lonewolf...) without taxing his resource pool.

In solo, where many locations are single clue locations, this lets Preston solidly hoover up clues while tooling up / drawing cards / moving around the map with his three actions.

Lola is better than Leo in a Preston solo deck. She also gives you a free action a turn, albeit limited to investigating, but that action is test-less, and one you’ll often want to do every turn anyway.

Finally, how does she compare to Streetwise? Sure, streetwise is far more flexible, as it lets Preston boost either Intellect or Agility to 7 once a turn by spending all of his Family Inheritance. Lola boosts those stats too, albeit only to 2, but at least it’s a permanent boost. I’d rather be investigating testlessly than pumping my Intellect via Streetwise and still risking drawing an Autofail.

Streetwise’s main strength is that it’s permanent, so you really have to buy it first. But once you have I’d save up your next 6XP for two copies of Lola

Especially when you add in her damage / horror soak which effectively puts Preston up to 8 in both.

The side-mission called Curse of the Rougarou has a reward card called Monsterous Transformation. I just got this for Preston and and I can't help but feel it's too broken to be allowed. But as far as I can tell it's fine. I'm going to play it through and laugh as everyone dies to the filthy rich wolf.