A Review of Wrath of N’kai, Using Arkham Horror Cards

By Chris Renshaw

Last time, I talked about Aconyte Books and how they are using properties from Asmodee/Fantasy Flight Games’ vast catalog to create unique novels setting in those universes. In that post, I talked about the one set in the world of Keyforge, but now I’ve had the chance to read the other book headlining this initiative: Wrath of N’Kai. This book takes place in the world of Arkham Horror. The Arkham Horror card game is now my favorite game of all time, so I was obviously very interested in reading this book.

First Things First

Just going to go ahead and spoil the review here: I loved this book. After the first couple of chapters where everything is laid out, the book takes off in the style of other cosmic horror/pulp mystery novels. And it took me along with it - I found it very hard to put this book down until I got all the way through the novel. Unlike the Keyforge book, this is a fully fleshed out novel, so there is plenty of entertainment here for the money.

Not only did the story do a good job of engaging me, it also did a fantastic job of sprinkling in enough Arkham Horror lore along the way. Have you ever watched a Marvel movie and giggled to yourself as they drop some deep cut comic book easter egg that you understand but everyone else in the theater is oblivious to? That’s what it felt like to me, both reading this book and afterwards the next time I played Arkham Horror: the Card Game (AHLCG). Looking at the flavor text, I’m now even more connected with the characters and names thrown about the various cards, so when the text mentions a specific gang or person, there’s a good chance I know what they are talking about. In my most recent play of AHLCG, I found myself very amused to read and see all the connections between the cards and the book I had just finished reading.

Here’s Where We Throw A Twist

Since I found myself rather engaged with the characters and setting of the story (and the game), I thought that instead of a “standard” book review, I’d talk about the book using cards from AHLCG. Specifically, I took some of the major players of Wrath of N’kai and made my own versions of what it would be like to see them as AHLCG cards. Looking online, I found out that there is a tool called Strange Eons that other fans have used to make their own custom cards, so I took advantage of that to make the following cards:

NOTE: I’m in no way a game design expert, so these cards could be horribly unbalanced. I just tried to use the story to guide my decisions as much as possible.

First up, we have our main character: Countess Alessandra Zorzi. The story begins with this thief finding herself brought to Arkham in order to steal a recently discovered Mummy that is being displayed at the town’s museum. However, things go sideways, and in classic Arkham Horror style, go from bad to worse really quickly. The Countess must conduct her own investigation to find out more behind this strange mummy before it is too late.

As to Alessandra’s investigator card, it was a tad bit frustrating trying to figure out what to use for her stats because as a master thief, she is effective at many tasks. The book makes it clear though that her greatest asset is her ability to plan and utilize anything and everything to her advantage. Therefore, you will see a common thread among the cards I made is her strategy is based on having and controlling Asset cards. This is how I got to her main ability and Elder Sign token ability. This is also why I gave her a stronger willpower, because she is able to adapt as situations change. I marked down her intelligence because in the story, there are a lot of clues that have to be gathered in order for her to put the master plan together.

What A Bunch Of Assets

In Wrath, Alessandra mentions that after her experiences as an ambulance driver in WWI, she now feels empty without having her trusty Webley on her at all times. So I made one of her dedicated Asset cards this weapon. Most of the stats on this card are pretty comparable to other similar weapons in AHLCG. The biggest difference I made with this card is that Alessandra is one to use her agility to her advantage when fighting, so I borrowed from the Backstab card and made the gun use her agility stat instead of her combat stat when fighting.

Next up, we have another person we are introduced to early in the story: Pepper Kelly, a cab driver in Arkham that is a woman pretending to be a man in order to get what she needs without any trouble. Alessandra pays her to become her personal chauffeur throughout the story. Yet, the cabbie becomes more than that, helping Alessandra get to where she needs to be and introducing her to whom she needs to talk to in order to get answers. Being a cabbie, I thought it should be fitting that her ability be some sort of movement effect. So once per turn, she offers the ability for Alessandra to quickly get to another place on the board without wasting any actions.

The Flip Side Of The Coin

Any “hero” in a story is only as good as their “nemesis”, just like every Arkham Horror investigator needs a weakness to balance them out. So it seemed only natural that Alessandra’s weakness be Abner Whitlock. Abner is an investigator hired by the insurance company that owns the policy on the mummy in question. When the mummy goes missing, Abner quickly suspects that Alessandra is behind it and tries to track her down and gain proof of what she did. For this card, I wanted to convey the fact that in the book, Alessandra finds herself running into Abner more and more often. In the beginning, it is easy to slip away from him but as the book progresses she finds it harder and harder to do so. Thus, the idea of increasing Abner’s evasion score the more you evade him seemed like an interesting way to show this bit of theme.

Conclusion

What do you think of these cards? Are they overpowered/underpowered? Was this way of reviewing the book helpful/interesting at all? Let me know below or on Twitter or Facebook. If the theme and lore behind these cards is interesting to you at all, I suggest you head over to your bookstore of choice and preorder Wrath of N’kai today!

Wrath of N’kai
Written by Josh Reynolds
Published by Aconyte Books