A Great Old One may prevent the effects of an Arcana Card by:
- Using another card which directly stops the effect (e.g. Elder Sign), or
- Sacrificing the number of Cultists noted in Red on the card, or
- Sacrificing Arcana Cards of the same value noted in Red or greater, or
- Sacrificing a Character Card (e.g. Eric Zann) and rolling to see if successful.
You may only use each method, in any order, once per card, for example, if you or another Great Old One has sacrificed Cultists to protect against the card’s effect, you may not do so again. The order is important as the value in Red of each card subsequently played is the value that must be equalled or beaten.
Note that a zero value (0) means a card’s effect cannot be stopped by sacrifice of Cultists just the other three methods.
When a Great Old One sacrifices Cultists to negate a card’s effect, she can take them from any occupied Node. In addition, another Great Old One may choose to assist and sacrifice their own Cultists – why, because the Gods are capricious and unknowable.
A negated effect can be negated, i.e. reinstated by use of a further negation method until all methods of negation are exhausted. Any Great Old One can get in their two cents by helping or interfering and spitefulness is fully encouraged.
Example:
Melissa decides to play ‘Misdirection’ on Leon in order to swap 3 of her tokens for his in a Node that is part of her winning condition. Leon does not have an ‘Elder Sign’ card and does not initially want to sacrifice cultists, so opts to discard ‘Prism Gate’ which is the same value (Red 2). Melissa has Cultists to burn and really wants the Node and so decides to sacrifice 2 Cultists taken from amongst her Nodes to reinstate the ‘Misdirection’ effect. Leon plays the Character card, ‘Randolph Carter’ and rolls a d6 to see if he can avoid the effect. He rolls a 5, is successful in protecting against the incursion, and the ‘Misdirection’ and ‘Randolph Carter’ cards are removed permanently from play.