The Case of Norman Dexter Withers

"Have only this consolation-- that he was never a fiend or even truly a madman, but only an eager, studious, and curious boy man whose love of mystery and of the past was his undoing. He stumbled on things no mortal ought ever to know, and reached back through the years as no one ever should reach; and something came out of those years to engulf him."
The Case of Charles Norman Dexter Ward Withers , H.P. Lovecraft   masomase

Miskatonic University Staff Profile

Name: Norman Withers
Title: Professor of Astronomy
Subjects taught: Introduction to Astronomy, Introduction to Cosmology, Advanced Astronomy, Introduction to Occult Studies
Selected Publications:
. Withers N, Comments on the recently expounded Relativity Principle and the Theory of Gravitation, 1920, Journal of Astrophysics
. Withers N, Simmons D, Some observations on the application of photographic technology in the field of Astronomy, 1915, Massachusetts Journal of Photography
. Withers N, Supernovae - recent theories and observations, 1914, Journal of Astrophysics
. Walters H, Withers N, A brief history of occult practice in State of Massachusetts in the period 1690-1801, 1910, Miskatonic University Press.
Unpublished Paper: Withers N, An account of the observation of the simultaneous disappearance of six stars in Hyades Cluster Core, and speculations as to cause.

A thematic and effective Norman deck for solo or multiplayer built for the Drawn to the Flame Podcast deck building competition (Episode 133).

The competition

The competition is to build a deck to return to Carcosa using any investigator but only using cards from the Core Set, Carcosa and Circle Undone cycles.

Contents

1. Why Norman?
2. Why Play this deck?
3. New Prologue for the Carcosa Campaign
4. Role-playing as Norman
5. Play Guide and deck choices
6. Miscellaneous Pointers
7. Solo / Multiplayer?
8. Upgrade Guide
9. Closing Remarks

Why Norman for this Competition?

Norman strikes me as a classic Lovecraft protagonist. By this I mean, he begins the story almost almost exclusively as a seeker of knowledge, curious about uncovering a mystery, suspicious that something unnatural is at play. He is a seeker and only has access to five level 0 mystic. It is only as Norman's research leads him to uncover ever more fantastic horrors that he develops powerful unnatural power. As he gains XP he can only access mystic (and neutral) level 1-5 upgrades. He is relentless in his pursuit to uncover the truth behind the mystery of the disappearing stars. And in Lovecraft's world an obsession with mysteries involving dark powers is not always a happy and healthy pursuit. Norman's innocent beginnings and his possible dark turn remind me most of Charles Dexter Ward in Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

As a campaign, Carcosa evokes a feeling of deep mystery and madness. There is a strong sense of the unfathomability of entities outside ordinary time and space. Investigators start innocent and with little knowledge. But as they gain knowledge and power they may commit atrocities of their own - depending on what they believe. This theme is very much in keeping with my reading of Norman's character.

From Norman's player card and the article introducing Norman we get the sense that Norman has an insight into the movement of the cosmos giving him some knowledge of the future. I take this suggestion a step further and wonder if perhaps, as Charles Ward did, Norman has also obtained some knowledge of things that have gone before - perhaps even having traveled to the past before, appropriate for Returning to Carcosa.

This deck seeks to weave these strands together alongside a new prologue to the Carcosa campaign, exclusively for Norman so that your return to Carcosa will also be a new story: 'The Case of Norman Withers'.*

*Out of necessity this prelude departs from the events in The Ire of the Void novella though I have taken some inspiration from this source.

Why Play this Deck?

Fun to be had from this deck...

For the Calvins* I have aimed to produce an effective and fun deck. Below I explain the strategy and the interesting and effective card interactions that have emerged from the Carcosa, Core and TCU card pools. I set out some of the ways that limiting the card pool has required creative thinking about optimal deck choices. Although the competition is just to build a deck, as some of the interesting interactions come at the upgrade stage I include a discussion of suggested upgrades. This deck is intended for campaign play. I will be returning to Carcosa with it and I’d love to hear if anyone else plays with it.

For the Daisies* I have written a special prologue for a Return to Carcosa campaign giving context for Norman's quest and insight into his character and cards. Throughout this guide I explain the inspiration I have taken from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and offer suggestions for role-playing as Norman and thematic choices for upgrading this deck through a campaign.

For the Leos* I recommend giving Norman a try in multiplayer. His ability slightly opens up group communication and this deck includes a suite of fun team support cards .

*If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out Episode 131 of the Drawn to the Flame Podcast on player types.

Carcosa - additional prologue

"I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadow of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask."
Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow

Add the following page to your campaign guide after page 1:

If Norman Withers was chosen as an investigator for this campaign: That investigator reads Norman Prologue (secretly) immediately after completing step 4 of Campaign Setup and before investigators begin the Prologue.

Norman Prologue

You saw it with your own eyes. On March 11, 1916, six stars in the cluster Hyades simply disappeared from sight. They have never reappeared. No-one believes you. Your reputation is in shreds. But you know what you saw.

Years of unrelenting research and repeated observations left you with no clue as to an explanation. When science could offer no answer and your curiosity could not be satisfied you turned, as you have done at times in the past to somewhat less than scientific texts. The kinds of texts which are not spoken about favourably among your colleagues of higher learning. You lent heavily on what "friends" you had left to uncover any secrets that might hold the key to explaining the riddle in the stars. Following your hunches in time you did make a discovery. You learned to peer into the void, across space and time... into the future and into the past. Using science and magic in concert you learned to travel from your study to strange places. Places of non-Euclidian geometry and ancient cities of cyclopean masonry. You witnessed indescribable horrors so great that your logical mind had to fight to remain level. You even traveled through the void into the past and recovered things that are far more than they seem.

But your obsession with the mystery in the stars has led to you being shunned by colleagues. You are not believed. A scientist must have evidence. You do not have evidence, not of the kind you can show them.

Any demonstration of the fearful power of some of your discoveries would land you in prison, or the Asylum.

And some knowledge you have gained cannot be forgotten no matter how much you may wish. Peering into the void is dangerous. And travelling through it, even more. There is a thing that in the strange angles of time has noticed your travels. It hunts you.

But still you search. And you will leave no stone unturned in your search for the answer to the riddle in the stars. And perhaps you have made progress.

Recently you visited somewhere in your travels through time that you think may hold the key to unlocking the riddle in the stars. You have never been able to return but the place now haunts your dreams. Though in truth they seem more like memories than dreams. You remember a lake… twin suns… black stars and… a mask. And each morning in the moment just before you awaken, at the very edge of your hearing, you hear a voice whispering ‘The King returns…’

And now, strange events plague Arkham and a strange play that seems so familiar comes to town. It cannot be mere coincidence. But how does it all fit together? The stars, the dreams, the hound, the mysterious disappearances and now… the Play.

You are now ready to begin the prologue.

Role-playing as Norman

Some suggestions for role-playing Norman.

• Norman is determined to amass evidence that will prove his theories are correct. Could this lead him to insist on collecting evidence when moving on might be in the best interests of the group?

• Norman is curious, intelligent and a man of science. Perhaps his first instinct is always to use his intellect, reason and to overcome obstacles? Is he uncomfortable using the unnatural skills he has learnt?

• As Norman grows in strength, it is not knowledge of the natural kind that grows. As he gains XP he may become increasingly willing to use his unnatural power to resolve problems. Perhaps there is an impact on his mental stability.

• Is Norman full of conviction about his beliefs? Is he truly logical in making connections between the stars and current events or is he obsessed?

• Where will Norman end? Is he a hero who will save humanity? Or will his search for the truth become a hunt for power? The path before him is uncertain. The choice is yours.

The Deck: card choices and piloting tips

This deck aims to be thematic and effect.

The primary objective of this deck is to gather clues efficiently. Norman's secondary tasks are team support and damage dealing. Given this versatile mix he is capable of taking on the mythos alone, if you are.

The following principles underpin the choice and use of the cards in this deck.

1. Leverage high intellect for investigation & willpower for damage

• Permanent Boosts: we use boost both of these key stats with two key assets: St. Hubert's Key and Hawk-Eye Folding Camera both provide a +1 boost to both of our key stats.
• Mind over Matter allows us to use intellect for damage or evasion.
• Shrivelling allows us to use willpower for damage.

Skill cards:

• Deduction improves our clue finding.

• Curiosity is both a key characteristic of Norman and perfectly suited to our strategy. In Carcosa treacheries may be in our hand.

• Eureka! is usable on skill tests on both our key stats, provides filtered draw and reshuffles the top card of our deck.

• Unexpected Courage was chosen for flexibility.

2. Get the most out of Norman's investigator ability

Norman has a passive ability to see the top of our card of his deck. This means we know what will be in our hand when we next draw a card. Norman also have an 'active' once per round ability which allows us to play the top card of our deck at a discount of 1 resource.

This deck uses two strategies to make the most out of Norman’s active ability.

First, we place extra weight on choosing asset or event cards with have high versatility. We really like cards that are

• Cheap (ideally 1-2 cost) assets or events

• Fast

• Useful immediately in many different game states.

The more that we can (within reason) include assets or events in this category, the more powerful our ability becomes - effectively giving us a bigger hand size and access to more cards we can use at any given time.

With that in mind the following cards have been chosen:

• Working a Hunch. A clear standout. It gives us a fast test-less clue, something we’ll generally always want at a cost of only one resource if it’s the revealed card. Anyone who has played Joe knows how good this is for free from the hunch deck, it's only slightly less good for 1 resource, and usually playable from our hand as well.

• Crack the Case. This is fast, it pays for other cards and we're likely to be satisfying its condition quite regularly when it's on top of our deck if we want to use it immediately. In a team game we can probably often donate some resources to others and help out the team.

• Mind over Matter is 1 cost and fast and, like Daisy, Norman has a high intellect and low physical stats. Sometimes we will want it in hand, sometimes we can get value out of it immediately.

• No Stone Unturned costs 2 and allows us or another investigator to find a card we really need. In a group this is great support for other investigators whilst also helping Norman draw into another card.

• Logical Reasoning costs 2. It is a great support card in multiplayer and for us it can turn back on Anatomical Diagrams. We also are big fans of the willpower icons so we take this in place of guts because of the extra value Norman may be able to extract from it.

• Deny Existence is really good, flexible and can protect us from a big damage hit.

• And of course, all of our assets can be played at a discount when they appear at the top of our deck.

The second part of getting the most out our active and passive ability is to use a few tricks to manipulate the card on top of our deck.

We have many cards that provide filtered draw then shuffle our deck. The secondary benefit for Norman is shuffling the top card of our deck if we don't want to play or draw it that turn.

Mr. "Rook", Eureka! and No Stone Unturned all give us the primary and secondary benefit.

The Occult Lexicon (which we’ll probably target with our filtered draw) does a load of things for us. Blood-Rite gives us card draw and the option of resources or test-less damage to any enemy at our location. This is flexible, and the damage is useful for a range of purposes (high fight enemies, aloof enemies, etc.). Because of our high amount of filtered draw we are very likely to draw the Lexicon and get the benefit of the single copy in our deck.

Weirdly, Blood-Rite is one of the few occasions when we’ll actually be drawing a card straight to our hand and not knowing what it will be (don’t worry if it’s ok for every other investigator in the game, it will be ok for Norman). As a sidenote, a person with better rules knowledge than me will be able to say what happens if the second card you draw is a weakness – I would assume it just gets drawn and you don’t get to draw another card with Blood Rite? As a second side-note, in a desperate situation can one use Blood-rite when engaged with the Vengeful Hound to discard two cards to do two damage even though one can't draw the two cards?

3. Draw the cards we need to hand

It should be fairly clear just how fast we can get through our deck and pick out our key cards now. The more XP we accrue, the more powerful searching our deck becomes.

4. Shore up our weaknesses

Dealing with enemies is done with Shrivelling, Mind over Matter, Anatomical Diagrams and Blood-Rite. Mr. Rook offers a nice 2-2 buffer. And once his secrets are used up he is expendable and we will get great value out of playing our second copy.

Miscellaneous pointers

Do not call up that which you cannot put down!
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, H.P Lovecraft.

We spoke above about why Norman is such a huge fan of filtered draw (a passion he shares with Mandy Thompson).

There is actually a third point to make about our most powerful filtered draw card Mr. "Rook". A somewhat hidden benefit of his ability to search 9 cards is to pull out a weakness from our deck and deal with it at a time somewhat of our choosing. This can be very favourable.

BUT do not use Mr Rook’s power to call up the hound when you are not ready to deal with it. The same goes for your basic weakness! Hit them when you're ready. The Hound is an excellent target for Shrivelling (and I feel like however much trepidation Norman has about using his arcane powers, he is probably comfortable using them against this indescribable horror). Mind over Matter, Anatomical Diagrams or a kind friend can also do the job in a pinch.

Mulligan

We want to see some assets. Shrivelling, the Occult Lexicon, Mr. Rook, our Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and St. Hubert's Key are all good as is an early Crack the Case.

Nothing is necessarily essential though and given our high intellect we're ready to start getting clues right from the start.

Splitting the Angle

We are unlikely to put this into play in this zero XP deck, unless perhaps a team-mate is bringing Alyssa Graham or Scrying. However, that will change once we’ve upgraded to Scrying. In any case the card provides nice icons.

Remember that just drawing cards can still be good

In fact, it’s really better in Norman. Because we know what we’re getting and we have a chance to reveal something that could immediately help us if we haven't used our once per round ability. Some cards we need in our hand - so don't be afraid to draw. Though do think about your weakness in the same way you would with any other investigator.

Ghastly Revelation

It is hard to explain just how a single sight of a tangible object with measurable dimensions could so shake and change a man; and we may only say that there is about certain outlines and entities a power of symbolism and suggestion which acts frightfully on a sensitive thinker’s perspective and whispers terrible hints of obscure cosmic relationships and unnameable realities behind the protective illusions of common vision.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, HP Lovecraft

Ghastly Revelation has been included for three reasons

1. A massive theme win in this deck.

2. If you don’t need it then we have two other ways of using it. (a) the two intellect icons will rarely hurt and (b) blood rite gives us value for discarding cards we don't need in hand.

3. Sometimes, in the right scenario this will be an extremely fun and helpful card to play.

4. Suffering one mental trauma is unlikely to be too much of a big deal for Norman.

Other cards

• I like the price of Fieldwork. Move, Investigate is probably going to be fairly common for us. But this card is probably not essential given our high base intellect and other tools to boost.
• Anatomical Diagrams has been included as a one-of. A lot of deliberation went into this. The fast, 1 cost combat option is really nice, and we have high willpower, Logical Reasoning the Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and Mr. Rook... but St. Hubert's Key is anti-synergistic so I settled my indecision by including a single copy.

Solo? Multiplayer?

A solo Norman campaign would be very appropriate as he sets out on a question to prove the truth of his own observations.

However, Norman wants to prove the truth to everyone. He also might have at least an inkling of the dangers that he may face. Perhaps he has friends either at the University or outside who have their own reasons for not immediately dismissing him as crazy. Perhaps he has hired others to help him investigate the mysterious events taking place in Arkham and he may not yet have told them about the disappearing stars. Or perhaps Norman and the other investigators begin their quests alone and the first time they meets is upon awakening together at the conclusion of the first Act of The King in Yellow.

Maybe he will even return to Carcosa with one of the investigators whose deck was designed to return to Carcosa?

• Daisy
• Yorick
• Finn
• Lola

Upgrades

Although the competition is to develop a deck for Carcosa, there are juicy thematic and mechanical choices to be made when upgrading, some of which are imposed by the restrictions for the competition. The available upgrades have also influenced the cards chosen for this deck and so are worth discussing.

An obvious upgrade for a Norman with access to cards from the Dunwich cycle would be Shrivelling. The fact that we are not able to take this card has meant that boosting willpower through other cards is more important for this deck in the longer term campaign. The various boosting cards and skills cards mentioned above increase our consistency and were included with this in mind.

The flip side of not upgrading to Shrivelling is that we can invest the 6 XP we would have spent elsewhere.

There are some very strong candidates our XP upgrades.

• Wither. Certainly, Norman doesn’t have chaos bag manipulation in his deck to reliably induce the conditional effect on this card. And yes, you do have 8 charges of shriveling you can reliably expect to see as well as other means of dealing damage. However I have one submission as to why you should seriously consider this card in multiplayer. Every time you use this card for your action you get to say ‘Norman Withers’. People will roll their eyes at you. This means you are playing a high level game.

• Scrying: A one cost asset that allows us to rearrange three cards from the encounter deck (with the possible downside of us taking a horror - something that shouldn't be a big issue for us). It is extremely thematic for Norman given his glimpses of the future. More importantly the free trigger on Norman's signature asset allows us to discard the top card of the encounter deck... So you can see the top three mythos cards, rearrange them and discard one if its effects will be terrible (Ancient Evils?). And with our filtered draw we can reliably set this combo up. In a 1 or 2 player game in particular this can be very nice.

• Storm of Spirits provides big burst damage. It fits the theme of Norman powering up with some big time spells.

• Time Warp: It's very thematic for Norman, it's fast, 1 cost and a powerful effect of mitigatating unlucky draws on important plays.

• Ward of Protection: A team support card with capacity to protect Norman against agility treacheries.

• Deny Existence: A big cost for a big effect. Well worth considering.

• Arcane Initiate: Allows us to repeatedly search for spells (which as seen from the above list of upgrades) become increasingly common in our deck. We can also use this to reshuffle the top card of our deck once each turn when we don't like it. A single copy seems worth considering (this card also starts me thinking about a deck with two of these, two Mr "Rooks" and calling in favours).

Other possibilities

• Four of Cups: Another willpower boosting option. We have a few willpower boosts already so probably only take if you feel the need for more. The discount we’d get from playing it via our ability if we don’t draw it in our opening hand and the fact we could get value out of it from Blood-Rite are other reasons we find this more tempting than other investigators might.

• Clarity of Mind: Could be worth considering if horror is becoming a big problem for the team.

Spoiler for both The Path to Carcosa and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Perhaps Norman’s story will end as a patient in the Arkham Asylum. With everyone thinking he is mad. If so, his fate will not be too different to that of poor Charles Dexter Ward… or was it Joseph Curwen…?

Further Reading & Listening

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, HP Lovecraft is an entertaining Lovecraft novella that can be found online.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, BBP Podcast: is Serial meets Lovecraft. A mock modern true crime podcast investigating the Case as if it happened in 2018. Very clever.

Drawn to the Flame Podcast is entertaining, informative Arkham Horror LCG content.

Thanks for reading!
masomase