Today, I’d like to introduce you to the five characters in our party for Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy’s Mask. (In case you missed it, my overview of Mummy’s Mask explains some of the new features in this base set.) These are the characters who will be making their way through the six adventure decks—assuming none of them dies terribly, that is.
Tup the Terrible
Speaking of dying terribly, let’s start off with Tup the Terrible, played by Cathe Post. I showed him at the end of my last post, but he’s worth a closer look. Tup’s character bio is a poem—basically, the gist is that he likes fire, and that he’s dressed from head to toe and is not a goblin, despite the fact that it says right there on his card that he’s a goblin pyromaniac. Unlike our last party, which only had one human character, this time we’re all humans, except Tup. Tup is a promo character, so he doesn’t come in the base set or character deck.
Tup has a lot of Charisma—it’s his greatest skill, with a d12, and he’s got Arcane and Diplomacy on top of that. He’s not bad at Dexterity (with Acrobatics) and Constitution. But, like most goblins, he doesn’t have much Wisdom and can’t even boost it later. Also of note: Tup is not proficient with anything (like weapons or armors) and doesn’t even have the capability of becoming proficient later. He’d probably just burn it anyway.
His starting powers include setting things on fire, and setting things on fire. He can banish a card for his own combat check to use Arcane + 1d8, and adds Attack, Magic, and Fire—basically he can banish any card as a fireball spell. Eventually, he can also gain a power so that when he banishes a spell for that power, he draws a random spell from the box, making him good for acquiring new spells. His other fireball power is “helping” other players at his location: he can add 4 (and Fire) to any check by recharging a card, but then everyone at the location other than Tup takes 1d4 Fire damage. It’s a pretty big boost, adding 4, but can come at a high cost.
His cohort, Deliverance, is a ram that allows Tup to move even when it’s not his turn—say, to come over and “help” you during a check. After he moves, Deliverance gets shuffled into Tup’s new location deck. Whenever he is encountered or would be banished, he goes back into Tup’s hand. We figure that every time Tup takes a ride on Deliverance’s back, the ram gets mad and runs off for a while.
I’ll save the role cards for later, once we get to the point where we’re picking roles.
Yoon
And as if we didn’t have enough firepower on our team, here’s Yoon, a kineticist, played by Wink Chin. She’s an orphan—father killed, mother missing—and travels with her stuffed owlbear, Gom-Gom (who, sadly, is not a cohort or item card, at least not in the base set). Yoon is included in the base set.
Yoon’s big strengths are Constitution (d10) with Fortitude, and Dexterity (d8) with acrobatics and stealth. She’s also got pretty good Charisma. A couple of her powers are blessings-based: she can recharge a blessing to add her Fortitude and Fire to a combat check, and then discard any number of additional cards for 1d6 per card. She also recharges a blessing from her discard pile at the end of her turn, so she’s always getting blessings back after spending them.
She also has an ability to reduce various damage types by revealing a card with the matching trait: Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire.
Estra
Estra is a spiritualist played by Curtis Chen. She was a charlatan until she met Honaire, a knight—and then he was killed by a dragon. Estra now summons Honaire’s spirit in real seances. Estra is included in the base set.
Estra is a Divine spellcaster—her high skills are Wisdom (d12) with Divine and Knowledge, and Charisma (d10) with Diplomacy. However, she’s very weak in Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution—and that’s where Honaire comes in.
Honaire is a loot ally card instead of a cohort, though he is Estra’s favored card type, so she always starts with him in her hand, but not in addition to her hand size. He’s got several abilities: he allows Estra to draw a spell from her discard or add a d10 to her Strength, Constitution, or Perception checks—and he goes on top of her deck, so she can draw him back right away. Even though Estra’s Strength is a d4, that “ghost punch” is a pretty good bonus. If he’s ever discarded for damage, he gets recharged.
One of her powers lets her examine her location: she can recharge a spell to peek at the top two, and if either is Undead, she may encounter it. Of course, in Mummy’s Mask, there are cards with the Trigger trait, and those can have immediate effects when examined, so she has to be careful about it. She can also use spells and blessings as armor, of a sort: each spell or blessing reduces damage by 3 instead of counting as 1 damage. Finally, she always gets an extra d8 against Undead cards.
Mavaro
Mavaro is our occultist, played by DeeAnn Sole. As DeeAnn likes to say, Mavaro is pregnant… with evil. He just likes stuff—his backstory is that he accidentally released the Thorn Priest when he stole treasures from a convent. Now he has the ability to channel his thoughts into items (while keeping an eye out for that Thorn Priest). Mavaro is from the Character Add-on Deck.
Mavaro has a lot of d6 skills, and his best skill is Intelligence (d10), which also has Disable and Knowledge. His Wisdom (d8) also includes Perception. But, due to his power, he’s really a jack-of-all-trades. He can display a card to use his Intelligence for any of the skills listed to acquire that card—which means that, with the right cards, Mavaro has a d10 for any skill he wants. (Any displayed cards are recharged at the end of his turn.) He can also discard any card to add a die to acquire weapons, armors, and items.
I thought the back of Mavaro’s character card was worth showing: he starts with no weapons, spells, or armor, and 9 items (which can eventually be boosted to a whopping 13 items). However, his special rule is that he can treat weapons, spells, and armor as items, meaning that Mavaro can mix and match these however he likes, depending on which skills he wants to have.
Ahmotep
Our final character is mine: Ahmotep, a magus from the Osirian capital of Sothis. She was a successful bureaucrat who ran into her fair share of criminals—and has now resigned to go adventuring. Ahmotep is from the Character Add-on Deck.
Ahmotep’s greatest skill is Intelligence (d10), which also has Arcane attached to it. Her d8 Strength (with Melee) is the highest for the party, though other characters have ways of boosting their combat checks when needed. And her Charisma is a d6, but has Diplomacy as well.
Ahmotep can add or subtract 2 from the result of her die roll after the fact by discarding a card. Eventually, this can be boosted to help other characters at her location, or activate with a recharge instead of discard. You might ask: why would you want to subtract from a die roll? Well, in Mummy’s Mask, there are times when rolling too high on a check will have negative consequences. Ahmotep is sort of like her own Luckstone, manipulating the results after the fact.
She’s also good with a staff: she can recharge any Staff card to add a d8 to her combat check. Also, there are many Staff cards in Mummy’s Mask that require you to discard a spell to activate some effects—Ahmotep may recharge those spells instead. I’ve already found that there are both weapons and items with the Staff trait, so Ahmotep will be able to get a lot of Staff cards in her deck.
Next up: time for adventure!
