The easiest way to handle this weakness is that you draw this card at the round when the agenda will be advenced like Arcane Initiate. Lucky Cigarette Case (3 level) is the good way to find this weakness. Also, some cards help you to find this card; sadly, he cannot take Rook for that.

Otherwise, you commonly want to defeat this enemy because of 1 doom. Here are some good cards to handle this. Note that he may want to deal 1 damage because most weapon has 2 damage (Long Colt, Switchblade, Mauser C96, .45 Thompson, Knuckleduster...).

• Marksmanship: This saves 3 actions; 1 engage, 1 move, and 1 fight. He could use his extra action to fight with Marksmanship.
• Righteous Hunt: This saves 2 move actions, and gives 2. He could also use his extra action to play this card, because this card has engage.
• "Get over here!": This save 2 actions; 1 move, and 1 fight, and potentially 1 action. This make the enemy move, so he may save 1 additional action if he need to his original location. One sad thing is he cannot take 2 level version.
• 1 more damage: Vicious Blow, Delilah O'Rourke, Garrote Wire...
• extra movement: Nimble (even if his is low, and hard to find test), Shortcut, Elusive...

Unlike all the other "If you fail, you must either ... or ..." effects, this one does not contain the word "must", which implies that you can choose to place 2 clues on your location even if you have none.

The section "Must" in the rules reference says: "In the absence of the word “must” while choosing among multiple options, any option may be chosen upon the resolution of the effect—even an option that does not change the game state."

Or am I missing something? Could this be an oversight by the designers?

I think an overlooked use case for this card is in Daisy Walker. Her willpower isn't that great, and it isn't often worth using spells that don't boost , and the ones that do boost it are too high level for her. She's not too likely to use arcane slots aside from Arcane Enlightenment or some other niche cards.

Obviously she's never going to substitute , and she doesn't need to. And it seems at first that getting a boost of only 1 to (without extra damage) or isn't really worth 2 xp, 1-3 cards and both arcane slots, but the most important consideration is Higher Education. Since it's a permanent, this combination of cards can convert any test to something that can be astronomically boosted with only a little bit of money, something that's easy enough to come by as seeker, and cards in hand, which are also easy enough to come by in that class.

It's not something that lets you fight primarily, but it can finish off a weakened enemy, and it can let you evade when desperate. It's also good at dealing with the rarer or even treacheries.

Also worth a consideration are all the seeker cards that interact with secrets. Eldritch Sophist and Truth from Fiction let you keep it around even longer, and the former lets you move charges from it to stuff that's more useful as the situation calls for. With that in mind, the three copies can be extra easy and fast secret gain, for use with other great secret assets, of which a few have been teased for the Innsmouth cycle. Though some of them also compete for arcane slots, Daisy can run Familiar Spirit in a pinch, or just run the very best slotless or Tome assets that use secrets. Old Book of Lore is a particular standout.

Overall, it isn't really necessary, or something that seekers don't have tools for already. However, most of these tools are events, and having something permanent - secret supply notwithstanding - on standby for turns where Mind Over Matter would feel like a waste is pretty good.

Q: Pretty sure I know the answer, but is "heal" a protected verb (e.g. A card effect must explicitly say "heal" in order to prevent the forced effect here), or do all means of removal qualify as healing? (e.g. Tommy Muldoon's elder sign effect)

This has been updated to match my "Signature Weakness Project." I have done my best to make sure that the original content isn't altered too much, out of respect for any comments.

Another enemy signature weakness. Looking at the two elements, the effect and the discard condition, we get:

The effect: This thing attacks Norman keeps him from drawing or revealing cards, messing with, but not completely negating, Norman's special ability. This is not a terribly difficult enemy to kill, even for Norman. In a previous review, people pointed out that it's not a hunter, so, if Norman can Evade it (or someone else engages it and Evades for him, it stays in its starting location, which might effectively put it out of play. However, with it's Evade of 3 and Norman's of 1, this is not going to happen naturally. Mists of R'lyeh could do the trick, but combat seems a better option, since Norman is even up with the Hound, even during his opening round ((Norman is unique so far that he can draw his signature weakness first turn. It's not likely, but it's Arkham). As Norman gains XP, his damage-dealing options become too numerous to mention, but, at 0 XP he is very fragile until he gets set up. Knife seems to be his traditional solution to an early Hound. It's cheap and he can throw it, getting 2 up on his test and killing the Hound if he hits. Enchanted Blade is more expensive, but it's more or less 3 thrown knives with some extra utility. Sword Cane is very attractive, since it can be kept in hand for the Hound's appearance and might be his best shot for that Evade attempt. It will take twice as many attacks to finish it, which might strain Norman's luck if he can't boost his . It's possible to get a perfect storm of a bad opening hand + the Hound on top of the deck, but that's pushing "situational" a bit far.

The discard condition: As usual with enemy weaknesses, kill it.

All in all, this is a below average signature weakness, maybe even way below on Easy or Standard.

Box vs book The Hound is a pretty easy weakness, but Split the Angle seems to get used for icons more often than it is played, so the "box" set is better, although you can run both without too much trouble.