Carolyn, the Charismatic Police Medium

This is a deck that I built for a three player campaign of Circle Undone. I wanted to build a thematic deck that was still functional. The idea is: Carolyn as a medium hired as a consultant for Arkham PD.

As a medium, Carolyn uses mystical rituals and artifacts to discover clues. Her assistant, David Renfield manages her resources. Meanwhile, she’s protected by her Arkham PD handler, Alice Luxley. Alice uses more traditional means for discovering clues, and with the help of her police dog, they keep Carolyn safe by soaking and dealing damage.

Much of the build is to leverage the allies. So the idea is to use XP to pack two copies of Charisma. And instead of packing straight horror healing cards, it utilizes Calling in Favors and Inspiring Presence to upkeep and recycle, mainly Alice and Guard Dog. Guard dog makes Carolyn unafraid of attack’s of opportunity, which gives her some action compression. For example, she can play Scene of the Crime, discover a clue, and then incur an AOO, which Guard Dog will soak, dealing a damage, and then she can investigate using Inspiring Presence, and if successful, heal the dog, incur an AOO, and deal a second damage. With Charisma, it’s even more potent, if Alice and Dog are in play, as Alice will deal a third damage, and IP will ready her for a fourth damage.

Clueving-wise, the deck has two “modes” of clue finding: mystic or seeker. The goal is to play either David with Sixth Sense and/or Rite of Seeking. And then when enemies start to become a problem, switch to Alice and the Fingerprint Kit.

Eventually, I’ll use XP to upgrade to Emergency Cache 3 to refresh Fingerprinting Kit and Rite. Stick to the Plan would then work well here.

XP will also be used to exchange Scrying for Recall the Future. Both cards work with the medium theme, but I prefer a bag controlling card than an encounter deck manipulator, since, in my view, simply manipulating the encounter deck only postpones the inevitable while bag mitigation can, in many cases, reduce a negative draw down to one token.

Carolyn is a very flexible character that can be build many different ways, so I am still tinkering with some of the cards. For example, I’m considering dropping I’ve Got a Plan for a Four of Cups for the will power boost, and I’m considering dropping Fearless and/or Logical Reasoning for Brother Xavier. BX also boosts WP, which would allow a powerful Mystic-mode of clueving while soaking damage, which could help if Alice and/or Fingerprint Kit are nowhere to be found. And since he is unafraid of defeat, horror healing becomes less important. And with two Charismas in play, it becomes possible to soak horror while Dog soaks damage, completely protecting Carolyn herself.

While this deck was built for a multiplayer campaign, the ally entourage makes Carolyn a pretty self sufficient clue finder who’s unafraid to engage enemies and incur attacks of opportunity, which may make it Solo-friendly.