The Silence Tokens

The Library of Celaeno instigates a new mechanism in Cthulhu Wars – the Silence tokens. Here is how they work. During the Determine First Player phase, each player receives one Silence token. Then, the First Player must give his Silence token to another player of his choice. Thus, in a 4 player game, two players each get 1 Silence token, one gets 2, and the last (the First Player) none.

The Silence tokens are used to trigger certain special actions. You can use them to use the Custodian, the Librarian, and also to trigger some of the special Library books on this map. You can’t “save up” Silence tokens – they must be discarded at the end of the Action phase if unused, so everyone has an incentive to spend them.

The Custodian “cleans up” chambers by moving units in the Area to an Area termed the Oubliette. Over the course of the game, this Oubliette tends to get filled with units, Sometimes fights break out.

The Librarian can only be activated if a player has an overdue Book, in which case it can wreak some real damage. Fortunately, you can mitigate the damage by returning the Book, though not necessarily eliminate all threat.

The virtue of the Silence tokens is that during the course of an action phase, the special Library abilities and units get used several times – since the Silence Actions cost 0 Power, people have a high incentive to use them. But they are not able to completely dominate play, either. It also stimulates players into trying to get the Library Books that are activated by controlling the Silence tokens, because these abilities are particularly handy.