Once again, a card expansion for Arkham Horror emerges from the fertile brains over at Fantasy Flight. Like Dark Pharaoh, this one adds Mythos cards, Other Worlds cards, and Arkham Location cards, as well as Spells, Common and Unique items, and a few new things of note. Also included are a Herald card and a counter sheet with several Yellow Sign symbol tokens and 3 new monster tokens, representing rioting mobs in the streets.

The theme, as many know, is based around the play titled 'The King in Yellow' holding performances in Arkham. The consequences of the play spread far and wide but have a bit more modulation to them, game-wise, than Dark Pharaoh did. As with Dark Pharaoh, you can play the King as a visiting performance, in which case other encounter cards for Arkham are removed in favor of the King cards, or as a permanent performance, in which everything is mixed in with the main game and other sets and the play becomes simply part of the overall background. All of the new cards can be added without the Herald mechanism and played normally, which is something that many who still find the game a challenge (especially with the inclusion of Dunwich Horror) may choose to do, as the Herald ratchets up the difficulty of the game somewhat.

There are 4 new cards for each Arkham neighborhood, leaving the overall count (including Dark Pharaoh and Dunwich) at 23, for a total of 69 encounters per neighborhood. That's solid enough to where people may not encounter the same events in Arkham in 2 or 3 separate games, which I find really encouraging, as AH is a storytelling-style game and it's good to have serious variety in the tales that are unfolded. The printing format is slightly different (darker) in the copy that I have, but that's no issue. Some of the new encounters are really positive (Administration: As students start leaving town in fear of their safety, the University begins to offer discounts on tuition and services. You may pay $5 to draw two Skills, keeping one and discarding the other.) and some could be extremely threatening (Library: You aren't the only one interested in the King of Yellow. All Maniacs and Cultists in Arkham, the Sky, and the Outskirts move to your location. You must immediately evade or defeat them.), to use just two from one neighborhood. Some of them improve on the more mundane of previous encounters, as well (Unvisited Isle: A monster appears! If you pass a Combat check against it, you find its skin is covered with the scrawl of archaic runes and may draw 1 Spell.) Overall, the level of reward from these encounters strikes me as better than that in previous cards, perhaps reflecting on the increased difficulty that other King cards bring to the game.

On the other hand, the new Outer Worlds cards seem a bit more ordinary than prior additions, perhaps reflecting on the fact that there are only so many interdimensional story bits in HPLs writing that one can draw from. There are quite a few events, both positive and negative, that lead one to being Delayed. I wonder if this might be a way to subtly increase the amount of time spent in the Outer Worlds, as there has been some complaint about the voyages into the unknown lacking some impact. One assumes that if you end up spending four turns (and encounters) in Celeano instead of two, you'll remember it a bit more when you get back (if you get back...)

The new Mythos cards are well done and, of course, center around the play and its performances. Six of them are The Next Act Begins! cards, which do not open a gate but move every monster symbol in the game on either the white or black paths, raise the Terror level by one, and cause the next Act card to be turned over. The Act cards are 3 yellow cards that are placed next to the Ancient One. When one is turned over, they reflect the play moving on in its performance and the time of Doom approaching. The first card can be kept face down by adding two Doom tokens to the Ancient One's track. The second can be kept face down by removing two Elder Signs from the board . If the third is ever turned over, the play is complete and the Investigators automatically lose the game. There are two new Rumors in the Mythos cards which are positively brutal, especially since they can't be stopped by any kind of payment, but can be largely avoided if the Investigators take the right steps (quickly.) They also move every monster symbol in the game and add 2 Doom tokens, rather than opening a gate. There's also a new type of Mythos card that does nothing but raise the Terror level by 2 (an obvious tip of the hat to Hastur.)

There are six new Spells (15 new cards), all of which are quite decent, as their Sanity costs and casting modifiers are low. 3 of them grant an ability (Magical Effect) that stays with the Investigator for as long as they would like to keep it, barring loss of the spell itself. There are, as always, pros and cons to said ability. The best of the spells is probably Storm of Spirits, which will aid the spellcasting characters quite a bit in combat.

Common Items gain a boost with things like the Time Bomb (can potentially remove all monsters in an area), the Understudy's Script (a great potential reward at the risk of one sanity), the Safety Deposit Key (a way to get Unique items at the Bank (i.e. a reason to go there)), and the Athame (a Physical weapon which gets better against Monsters with Magical Resistance and Immunity.)

Unique Items also gained some interesting cards, including a 3 solid Magical weapons (Gladius of Carcosa, Cursed Sphere, Petrifying Solution), several very usable Tomes, and a couple items that are left in locations in Arkham and which can be used by any Investigator (for a price...)

Finally, there are Blight cards, which are part of the Herald rules. The Herald is a method of not only making the game more difficult, but making the Terror track have a larger effect on the game. Every time the Terror level rises with the Herald in play, a choice is presented to the players: Either place a Yellow Sign token on the Doom track, where it acts just like a Doom token, or place it on the Terror track where it has the same effect as a Terror increase, but also brings in a Blight card. Blight cards are represented by people from Arkham having been affected by the King in Yellow. So, Velma from the Diner, Ma Mathington from the Boarding House, Sheriff Engle, and others all come into play with this or that environmental effect (most of them pretty harsh) and remain for the rest of the game. For example, if Ma Mathington shows up, all Allies are removed from the game and Ma's Boarding House is permanently closed. If Father Michael shows up, Blessings are discarded during Upkeep on a roll of anything but a 6 ! Furthermore, if Investigators have an encounter with one of the characters on a Blight card in play, they lose 1 Sanity or 1 Stamina (player's choice.) Needless to say, play the Herald at your own peril, especially if you're already worried about the Dunwich Horror. (BTW, FFG has already released rules for a Herald of Nyarlathotep, the Dark Pharaoh, on their website: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ah_heralddp.html)

Overall, I'd consider The King in Yellow to be another indispensable expansion for frequent players of Arkham Horror, especially for those who feel the game has fallen into a rote pattern that they can beat at will.