Unofficial Return to Edge of the Earth - Encounter Cards Part 1
Edge of the Earth has been one of my favorite campaigns since its release, and one I had most hoped to see a Return To for. The campaign has a few rough parts that keep it from being great: unbalanced partner allies, dull enemies, make or break scenarios (looking at you, Forbidden Peaks), missed opportunities for player agency, and I straight up think it's too easy. I plan on designing a roughly 100 card, scenario-card only set and discussing why the changes were made, starting with replacement encounter sets.
Currently, five encounter sets have been revamped: Deadly Weather and Creatures in the Ice from Edge; Ancient Evils, Chilling Cold, and Locked Doors from Chapter 1 core set. Here I'll talk about the replacement encounter cards for the two campaign-specific sets.
Deadly Weather → Atmospheric Anomalies
This set is used in all three parts of Ice & Death, as well Forbidden Peaks, frontloading it in the campaign. All three cards follow the same format of attaching to your location and then discarding at the end of the round. They are usually weak (maybe sans Antarctic Wind which prevents playing and drawing cards) and easy to avoid, given the context that player decks prepared for Edge'll bring along additional movement. They also lack any sort of agency, missing out on the opportunity for player decisions.
False Aurora, Malevolent Blizzard, and Williwaw all follow the theme of Hazards that attach to locations, but now ask the player who drew it to weigh the cost of putting it somewhere else. This is coupled by the Peril keyword now on these cards and a wrinkle in the discard trigger for False Aurora and Williwaw, meaning players can't just walk away and forget about them forever (on top of slimming the encounter deck). In Ice & Death, the broad map gives the option to place Hazards in corners to worry about later. In Forbidden Peaks, the decision gets tenser with less locations and tighter grouping.
Creatures in the Ice → Nightmares in the Snow
This set is included in parts 1 and 3 of Ice & Death as well as 2/3 versions of City of the Elder Things. Eidolons, Edge of the Earth's signature enemy type, are kind of dull and lack identity. I've interpreted the eidolons as a tangible mixture of the expedition's inner turmoil with the literal storms. A common theme in Edge is fewer, but chunkier, enemies in the encounter deck, where each of them feels like a hurdle. Manifestation of Madness is functionally a 3/3/3 with a blank text box; a hunter enemy that spawns on your location and only triggers its Tekeli-li effect if it attacks you, something that will rarely happen given the above. Atmospheric Phantasm is more interesting and likely to trigger it's Tekeli-li, but is still a big chunk with diet-hunter that will only matter if you need to evade and bolt. Kindred Mist is basically blank, I don't think I've ever needed to resolve its effect. A personal nitpick, but the art in this set doesn't evoke much for me either.
The replacement eidolons, Incarnation of Insanity and Uncanny Apparition, synergize with encounter cards attached to locations, as another way to complicate where Hazards and their ilk are placed. They remain chunky hunters who deal 1 damage and 1 horror, but are intended to have more ways to interact with them and reward planning. Mind Fog follows the same pattern as the Atmospheric Anomalies set, allowing placement flexibility but with the same stricter discard condition.
I've got some other ideas down the line, including a fundamental revamp of Fatal Mirage and a pathway where investigators and the Elder Things recognize a common enemy. What do you think? Where does Edge of the Earth rank among campaigns for you and what sort of changes would you want to see?