Chartreuse Waffles: Standalone 49 XP Lola

Premise: Avoid the usual role-juggling awkwardness by just focusing on two classes ( and ) and then filling out a tertiary class () with cards that don't actually require her to be in-role: Dilemmas! (and 1 multiclass) Control the dilemmas -- and the many added weaknesses for standalone -- with deck manipulation tools (FILP and SoS(3)).

Role in the party: Clue hard! With Higher Ed and static boosts, she easily investigates at 5 , and at clue-dense locations can slurp them all up with Archaic Glyphs (Guiding Stones) for 1$ each.

Class "roles": Most of what you want to do is in . Occasionally you'll want to visit in order to play the clock, FILP, or fundraise. (And you never need to visit a third class.) Improvisation does require you to switch classes, so time it accordingly. (Immediately post-FILP is often nice, to play a discounted card you stacked on top.)

A quick review what works and what doesn't:

• Dilemmas: Auto-"cast" when they enter your hand, regardless of role.
• The Red Clock: Triggers regardless of role.
• Empirical Hypothesis: Criteria-choosing (it's fine to set-and-forget to "succeed by 3+") occurs regardless of role, and so does exhausting it to add evidence, but spending the evidence (to draw) requires you to be in .
• Static buffs (Mag Glass, Jeremiah Kirby): Function regardless of role.

Controlling her dilemmas: You have two tools for organizing your deck:

• FILP: This particular configuration is: peek at the top 9, reorder them (never shuffle), and optionally resolve some Dilemmas for 1$ each (though remember they are collectively max 2/round). Lets you set up a completely stacked Kirby, or Black Market, but remember that those end up reshuffling (Kirby immediately, and BM after a full round including upkeep). If you see a Crisis of Identity and another weakness, stack them so Crisis eats it for you!
• Scroll of Secrets (3 ): Also can peek at 9 cards, just from the opposite direction, and spread out in 3 batches of 3/turn. Try not to return cards to the bottom (unless you hit a double weakness) so you can continue to dig as deep [upward] as possible. Once you've found Ariadne's Twine you can maintain a SoS indefinitely. (Note that SoS can also be used on the encounter deck, and on teammates, from any location.)

Once you've peeked at a card in your deck, I highly recommend just leaving it face-up (but upside-down), so you can spend your mental energy on actually playing the game.

Notes about the dilemmas themselves:

• 2x Fickle Fortune: Since the doom-adding option does not include a threshold-check, the ideal time to draw these is during a witching hour, to get free healing for everyone and some SS charges for you. But when drawn at any other time, you're effectively forced to RFG it and have everyone take direct damage/horror. (Hopefully you get -doom, but even if not that's probably still the correct choice.) SoSing the encounter deck can help protect your witching hour so Ancient Evils and the like.
• 1x Predator or Prey: Another high-risk high-reward option. When well-timed, it helps you reel in irritating "track me down" enemies, or propels everyone forward past generic "get in your way" enemies. It even affects Elites, and so can break some scenarios wide open.
• 2x At a Crossroads: Basically a souped up Prep Sketches (2). Note that if you want to draw cards off of this, you need actions remaining, which means FILPing not as your last action of the turn.
• 1x Nature of the Beast: Lets you hand a clue to a non-cluever (sometimes useful), and can do so remotely, meaning it's not a big deal if your Glyphs-blast slightly undershoots.
• Generally: If you draw 2 during your turn, and then a 3rd in upkeep, the 3rd will just park in your hand indefinitely, which is fine. If you want to get it back into circulation then hitting 9+ in upkeep is relatively easy.

Notes about specific other cards:

• Existential Riddle: On top of its normal utility as an escape button, this has the added value here (when used on hunters) of effectively giving you a little floating springboard that PoP will let you kick off of, in any direction. Also great at keeping weakness enemies in play (and out of looped decks).
• Transmogrify: Similarly locks an enemy in play, but this one leaves a beautiful gift to your party who would love an excuse to sit and milk their PP(2) for a few turns. Being able to glue a patroling enemy to a specific location is also sometimes handy.
• Deep Knowledge: Be generous to keep your teammates from murdering you for having added s!
• Improvisation: Note that you do have to switch roles when playing this. Nice to have immediately post-FILP. Losing a potential 1$ (i.e. using it to discount a 2$ card) is fine. Tempting icons, but only use as a commit in extremis! (It'd cost you the card and the draw and the resource discount.)
• Black Market: Able to permanently lock out a weakness, if you can finagle it such that, when it's time to close the market, your deck is empty and the market has just a single weakness. Nice if the opportunity arise naturally, but not worth going very far out of your way for when you've still got 6 other weaknesses.

Team considerations:

• 4-player is ideal, to get the most value out of Archaic Glyphs, Fickle Fortune, and Predator or Prey.
• Jeremiah Kirby and The Red Clock are both unique.
• Dilemmas are 2/round max amongst everyone.
• If curses are a dealbreaker, Perception is an acceptable replacement for Deep Knowledge.
• If, on the other hand, curses are welcome and appreciated, swapping the Hot Streaks for Faustians would reclaim enough XP to allow you to replace the Black Market with Ace in the Hole. (Powerful L3s are what you came to Lola for, right?)

Campaign play: This decklist is of course for standalone, but the concept works great in campaign as well, though it needs to go through some early role contortions. (Adaptable access is a lifesaver!) More details to come.