Alright for real this time.

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so I just wanted to add it for posterity. This card is Tactic traited. You can stick this on a Stick to the Plan and have an on-demand dash at any time during a scenario. I can't wait to try it out!

2 questions about this version of necronomicon.

1. What if you play voice of Ra and reveal elder sign?? Does it earn you 0, 2, or 6 resourse??

2. If you draw elder sign during skill test, can you play counterspell(2)? If you can, would the effect of 1 icon token of your choice be cancelled? Or all of them?

The static boosts are nice, particularly for the likes of Norman or Marie that can use the as well. But it's usually a waste to get Ikiaq just for the stat boosts, particularly since mystics have no shortage of good allies. You'd usually be better off getting Arcane Studies if you're particularly enamored of the two stats; it'll save you a Charisma as well. No, what you really want Ikiaq for is the ability to cancel basic weaknesses.

Mystics will rarely need to use Ikiaq's ability for themselves. With Deny Existence and the worst draw of all the classes, Mystics don't worry much about their own basic weakness. The draw that they do commonly use (Scroll of Secrets and Arcane Initiate) can't draw basic weaknesses either. Ikiaq is better for your friendly fast drawing rogue or seeker, who is likely to draw out their deck and see their weaknesses more than once. It's for a support mystic that's willing to give up their Ally slot and 6xp for the good of the team.

Y'know about all those degenerate rapid-cycling big hand seeker decks, and how the only thing holding them back is nasty basic weaknesses like Through the Gates or Amnesia? With Ikiaq, they'll have nothing to fear at last. The last barrier to true seeker supremacy is finally broken!

You'd think it would mitigate Doomed or Offer You Cannot Refuse, but in practice it doesn't do very well against those two as the "upgraded" forms are no longer basic weaknesses and can't be cancelled. All it takes is drawing them before Ikiaq is purchased or before she's played, and she'll be useless against them henceforth.

She also is much more useful in Standalone mode, where you have more weaknesses in your deck and haven't built your deck to mitigate those weaknesses.

The Stygian Eye is super cool thematically (I'm really liking all the Greek mythology stuff Seekers are rocking lately), so I'm eager to make it work. But this card asks a lot of you, and I'm not sure it gives all that much in return.

You really have to be all-in on Curses to make this worth 3 XP. To be honest, I think that even if you are all-in on Curses, this effect is not necessarily a hugely rewarding payoff. If you'll indulge me in a cross-faction comparison, look at Trial by Fire and Will to Survive. I think you have to try to get The Stygian Eye down to 3 resources or lower for it to even start seeming playable at its XP cost. That's an awful lot of Curses! At 0 resources it's getting strong, but even then it doesn't strike me as crazily strong, not for 3 XP.

If this were a more permanent bonus, it could really be the centerpiece of a deck. As is, I think that one really strong turn is not enough of a payoff to justify throwing a lot of Curse generation into your deck. (The recursion options like De Vermis Mysteriis and Eidetic Memory are worth keeping an eye on, but each only offers one additional use.) So, I think you are probably going to want other, stronger payoffs for your Curses, and put this in additionally.

I suppose that a hypothetical Seeker/Rogue might be the best home for this, as Rogues have additional ways to get Curses into the bag, and also have a lot of ways to generate extra actions which obviously works well with this round-long buff. Even outside of Rogue, there are various ways to take an extra skill test or two on your turn (Ursula + Pathfinder, Summoned Hound, Cryptographic Cipher, and so on). None of these proposed synergies are all that exciting to me, but they're worth keeping in mind if you decide to go for this.

My guess is that, despite the cool artwork and the sweet Greek mythology reference, this card will ultimately be too underpowered to see much play outside of theme decks. But we'll see. Maybe the extra-action and/or recursion synergies eventually get there.

I disagree that Ruth Westmacott is unimpressive. I think she's pretty darn good, and well worth the 3XP for Charisma to run both her and Alyssa Graham. (Of course you want Alyssa - she's the single most important card for Gloria). Yes there is the risk in Charisma-for-Ruth that you don't draw her, but Charisma for an optional signature ally tends to open up campaign-specific allies too, and then you play out which one you draw. Let's assume for now that you get Ruth out alongside Alyssa - is Ruth worth that 3XP and 3 resources? Wholeheartedly, yes.

The trick with Ruth is to be using her a lot. With Gloria, you don't just want to lock down a few Ancient Evils or whatever into your basement and then leave it at that. With Ruth out, you want to be cycling cards into and out of the basement every turn, possibly even multiple times / turn if you can.

There are no limits to how often you can use Gloria's ability. With Alyssa out, you've got one every turn. With Scrying(3), Scroll of Secrets, maybe even Parallel Fates or First Watch , or even her Elder Sign / Seal of the Elder Sign, getting two cards into the basement in a given turn isn't hard. It doesn't even have to be every turn, you just want a steady flow of cards in. Then Ruth allows you to flow the cards out again, claiming her bonus.

Ruth's bonus is actually pretty good. It can reduce skill tests to 0, it can make "fail by X" cards (like Rotting Remains) completely blunted, it can be used anywhere on the map, and it doesn't exhaust. If you've seen Liber Omnium Finium, then you can safely be flowing monsters through Ruth for auto-evades or fights as well. Just getting the bonus, say, 3 or 4 times and burning her for Health/Sanity would have been worth the play. But you can do it far more often than that. In my most 4-player recent game, I dropped Ruth first turn alongside Scrying (3), getting Alyssa online later. By the end of the game, I'd used Ruth 14 times. Even if you say it's half as good as Ward of Protection, that means Ruth deployed 7 Ward of Protections for 3XP, 1 card, 3 resources - that's insane value!

Yes, she's better the more players you have. But that's OK, as Gloria's main abilities are better the fewer players you have. So Ruth can help across the board on 3/4 player, but is still good on 1-2 player. We'll see how Gloria's "real" signatures turn out, but for now, I'm very happy with Ruth.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention, is that Ruth Westmacott's name refers to Agatha Christie, who also published under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. Gloria Goldberg is of course an Agatha Christie type character.