In the 1920s, we didn't have as many regulatory bodies for sports, and thus safety standards were a bit lax. For example, major league hockey didn't require helmets, and Professional Boxers were permitted to carry Demolition and/or Military Explosives.

Accordingly, Nathaniel Cho loves these things. He absolutely needs his Boxing Gloves, and thus has no slots for backup weapons to support his +1 event dmg for the turn. Sure, there's Bandolier, but the beauty of the Boxing Grenades is they're slotless, accomplishing in 1 card & 1 action what Bandolier+(weapon) do in 2 of each.

Better still, they give your Ringside Manager something more to do when he shows up late to the match:

• Got Boxing Gloves? Fetch me my Boxing Grenades!
• Got Grenades? Fetch me my Gloves! (Or more Grenades. Can't have too many!)
• Had Grenades but used them up? Get them back! A nice synergy here- Grenades auto-discard when empty, putting them right where Randall can recur them.
• Even in the 1920s, boxers were only permitted to wear regulation shorts & sweat-soaked tanktop- so Ringside Guys aren't permitted to go find you a Bandolier. You can't even Prepare one!

It's these little details, recreating the pastiche of the early 20th century, that I really appreciate about Arkham Horror's worldbuilding.*

+++

*- ...I know absolutely nothing about boxing.

The initial use of this card is pretty obvious: fill up the bag with blessings, and then play Ward of Protection at a cost of one fewer horror and one less resource. It also works on fellow investigators! The trade-offs are clear: it’s not automatic. But with favor of the sun, it becomes automatic. With Tides of Fate, it becomes much more common; that card specifically lets you play it before drawing cards in the mythos phase. This card shines in support Mary or Mateo, where a lot of your game is spent filling the bags with goodness and protecting your fellow investigators.

A Preston blessing deck is extremely viable, based on ancient covenant getting you to a 3 when you need it. And this card is the cornerstone. Unlike most characters with survivor access, cash aint an issue when it comes to playing it. Use resourceful on other investigators test to recur it.

So, a lot of people have figured out that you can use this to evade the Harbinger multiple times in one turn without having to re-engage it (especially good with someone like Rita Young who would be better at evading it than fighting it). Well, I have an even more janky proposition for you:

Suppose that you're engaged with enemies and you have Entombed in your threat area. You provoke an AoO (or get damaged through some other means), it would defeat you except that you have Cheat Death in your hand, so you play that. Normally, the first step of Cheat Death is that you disengage from each enemy engaged with you, but Entombed prevents this from happening so you go to the next step, discard all cards in your threat area. This includes both Entombed itself, and the enemies that you are engaged with.

But wait, it gets better...

Because Cheat Death is not expecting to discard enemies at all it has no text preventing it from discarding Elite enemies. This means that if you have the Harbinger of Valusia engaged with you, you simply discard her from play; Achievement unlocked.

But it gets even better...

Normally, in the resolution to The Doom of Eztli, if you haven't defeated the Harbinger, you would record that she is still alive, which means that she comes back in future scenarios, however the actual text of the resolution is as follows:

If the Harbinger of Valusia is still in play or set aside, record in your Campaign Log that the Harbinger is still alive. Next to this, in parentheses, record how much damage is on the Harbinger of Valusia.

In general, if the Harbinger is not in play or set aside, she is in the Victory Display, but if you somehow discard the Harbinger, she will be out of play and not in the Victory Display. Congratulations, you have eliminated the Harbinger of Valusia without wracking up any Fury of Yig at all.

As has been mentioned, only Carolyn Fern might want this, and only in multiplayer.

That said, Carolyn Fern might want this! (but only in multiplayer!)

A couple things in the past year have boosted it's stock:

• Safeguard / Safeguard 2. This fantastic talent already helps Carolyn stick to & support her pals. For Kerosene, this makes it much easier to be in the room when a baddie gets thwacked, ready to serve up some Fiery Psychiatry.

• Backpack 2. Kerosene's an item! Carolyn doesn't otherwise need her body-slot, and Backpack 2's 12-deep search can grab 3 of her key tools early, including Kerosene, as well as her Cameras, Pills, Pipes, Keys, Hooch, and Surgical Cleaver.

Kerosene's major downside is its clunkiness. But if Carolyn's already using the above tools (which she has ample reason to do), a lot of that clunkiness is mitigated, making Kerosene an appealing low-XP, no-slot-occupying, tutorable, multi-target healer & resource generator.