One of the best, if not the most versatile customisable card in the set for support investigators. By itself, it's: pay a card and an action to give you +1 to a relevant stat for your next 8+ actions, which is a more than decent value for a level 0 card. But things go crazy if you combo the different mods together later on:

If you play with highly specialized investigators (5 in one stats, below average in the rest), you can permanently give them a +2 against the mythos with "Shifting ink, Subtle Depiction, Vibrancy, Eldritch ink (2)". You choose mind + foot as selected skill. Round start: they have some treacheries involving tests with those two stats, and when their turn start, they just use the Subtle Depiction effect and ignore the negative effects on fist and book. Since they never consume their charge, the asset is basically permanent. Or if they have to pass a specific test during their turn, they can still keep the +2 and apply -1 to their main stats to do whatever they want to do.

Else, if you play with flex characters (generally survivor & rogues who hit between 4 & 6), you can still give them +1 to fist + book & use Macabre depiction, so they are virtually have an endless supply of charge, as long as they draw one symbol a turn. And that +1 is often the difference for those flex characters to reliably pass any tests they get.

Imbued Ink is the only mod you'll probably never take, except for Akachi if you plan to instantly discard it for 6 resources. Body assets are rare and not often that useful late in the campaign, since they are too comboish, or cost too much for what they bring. However, arcane assets tend to be more relevant no matter your class for the last few scenarios.

At worse, it's a 0 cost asset that is a fodder against bad treacheries & investigators' ability (dexter). Give it a shot.

Fickle Fortune is one of those cards that starts off interesting, and only gets better on analysis. At its very basics, Fickle Fortune is a 3 XP card that can either act as a powerful team-wide heal or doom removal - two very useful effects depending on exactly how your team is doing.

If you're choosing the first effect when you draw it, you're adding 1 doom in exchange for up to 6 healing per player. This is incredible action compression in some ways, since it is a rare player card that scales with player count, meaning it only becomes more impressive as you have more investigators. The downside is that it scales this way in exchange for doom, but the second half of Fickle Fortune will help you mitigate that. And, since it adds doom that doesn't advance the agenda, this can end up being free healing at the right time.

If you're choosing the second effect when you draw it, you're effectively removing 1 doom in exchange for some additional time. The damage isn't negligible, but it's also not too severe - it's what I would consider within the buffer of what most investigators try to keep to avoid going down to an unfortunate encounter card. This does remove Fickle Fortune from the game as well, so it shouldn't be picked if the healing portion will be necessary later.

Even before getting Survivor tricks involved, this is a powerful card that lets you choose if your team needs Healing or Doom more at any given moment. Neither of the choices involve costs, and the doom addition/direct damage means both options will always change the game state, so you can always pick the one that will help more or harm less. If you're going all the way and purchasing two copies, the net effect of both copies will still put you to a net of 2 health and 2 sanity per investigators for two cards and no actions - a reasonable exchange rate, even before getting extra value from it.

And, of course, survivor tricks like Resourceful and Shrine of the Moirai will only help to get this back in your hand hand at the exact moment where you can make the most use of it.

Of course, if you really have a lot of XP to spare, you could run this with Soul Sanctification in a 4 player game, draw this early, and grab enough offerings to last for a full scenario. Carolyn Fern and Vincent Lee get to throw a few more gifts around on top.

Jacqueline Fine is probably one of Carson Sinclair's primary targets to try and butler (butling?) or at the very least, he will want to stick to her location as much as possible.

Why? Because her Elder Sign ability will activate far more often than any other investigator due to its unique ability to resolve even when cancelled or ignored which Jacquline will want to do 90% of the time. And regardless of whether she plays her Elder Sign or chooses to draw a card, Carson will still draw a card.

She's a fine lady who treats her servants very well.

I can only imagine the 'Innate' trait was not on this card to specifically not allow it to go in a Silas deck, because the other similar upgrades over the neutral basics, of Guts, Manual Dexterity, and Perception are all innate. It annoys me more for the asymmetry that the other 3 are innate.

Unfortunately after several attempts I just can't justify this weapon in anyone's hands with the current card pool.

Anyone going for this is obviously setting out for the great task that is monster control.

Guardians or Mystics have access to Cyclopean Hammer which is just objectively better in every way.

Currently the only combat oriented rogue is Tony, and he has a much better pool of weapons to choose from (even a 1 exp switch blade is better than this in his hands due to the fast action, and has similar dps over three turns).

Seekers have their laser books.

Survivors have chainsaws. Yorrick has endless chainsaw recursion through act of desperation, and Silas is better off with his base sea change harpoon than this.

It has many problems that keep it from being viable.

1.) It's two damage. Most enemies have 3 HP, meaning this weapon doesn't actually offer that significant of action compression. You're still going to have to take two actions to deal with most enemies, assuming you pass both checks. You can augment this with vicious blow or plus damage cards, but you don't have to with any of the other options on this list.

2.) Very low might boost. Take someone with a might of 5 and they're testing at a 7. Considering you need to be at a +4 reliably on Expert to hit things, this will struggle to inflict damage on enemies with a fight of 3 or higher, which is most enemies in the game.

3.) It's saving grace is its one handed, but you don't need your other hand for anything else if you are monster hunting.

4.) Cost. 5 resources is extremely expensive and makes this one of the most expensive assets in the game. The other similarly costed assets do major damage.

5.) Its "big hit" is once per game and really only does two attacks at once.

One of the few cards that needs a retroactive buff. Dropping experience requirements to 3 and resource cost to 3 would probably more accurately reflect the power of this card, or removing the once per game restriction on the exhaust. Otherwise, there are just better cards now.