Sleeper

**Sleeper** {CW-F2} is a faction released with Onslaught One. It focuses on staying dormant until the enemies are exhausted, and then cleaning up the map while they're defenseless.

## Components

### Faction

 As your Action, spend 3 Power.Each other player gains 1 Power.
 As your Action, spend 3 Power.Each other player loses 1 Power.
 Perform a Ritual of Annihilation.

## Strategy

### Faction strategy

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### Spellbook strategies

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* **Burrow** - This is an easy Spellbook to ignore until it is too late. Try to get it even if you don't have immediate plans for it, it will be worth it when the time comes to use it.
* **Capture Monster** - This is probably one of the best offensive spellbooks in the game. Your enemies should be terrified of Tsathoggua when they are out of power!
* **Cursed Slumber** - It may be tempting to use right away, but consider saving this ability for when a gate comes under attack. Often, enemies will forget you have the ability to sink the gate into the depths at a whim. This can also be used offensively on gates you would not be able to defend. Use Tsathoggua to capture a cultist off of a gate in the heart of enemy territory, summon a cultist there, then take the gate away.
* **Demand Sacrifice** - This spellbook gives your enemy a decision to make, and both options are bad for them and good for you.
* **Energy Nexus** - An excellent defensive Spellbook. Especially useful for defending sensitive targets in late game when factions have unlimited combat.

#### Ancient Sorcery strategy

This spellbook is one of the most dynamic parts of Sleeper's kit, and its utility is heavily dependent on the other Factions in play. As a default, it can be a method for transferring unused Power to the next round and redeploying Serpent Men to more advantageous Areas. However, if certain other Factions are in play it can synergize quite well to make Sleeper a powerhouse.

### Recommended openers

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## General Tips

* **Elder Sign Acquisition** - Sleeper can gain Elder Signs through his Demand Sacrifice spellbook. This is completely up to your opponents. Try to tempt bloodthirsty players in battle. If Great Cthulhu is in the game, gaining Elder Signs becomes drastically easier! See below. Fighting Tsathoggua alone is often too tempting to resist, so many players will give you the Elder Sign. Then you gain a second one when using Ancient Sorcery to steal Great Cthulhu's faction ability.
* **Great Cthulhu and Ancient Sorcery** - As seen above, this is an excellent situation for Tsathoggua. Not only can you summon him again for 4 power, but you get an Elder Sign when you do, just like Cthulhu. When you no longer fear losing Tsathoggua, he is an absolute menace. Send him on suicide attacks at the beginning of a round. Since his attack is equal to the opponent's power, he can roll an absurd amount of dice ALONE! If you have *Demand Sacrifice* as well, it is a lose / lose situation for your enemy. If they kill Tsathoggua, you will have been given an Elder Sign and receive another upon awakening him. If they don't give you an Elder Sign, they are open to further assault.
* **Lethargy** - Use it! If left unchecked by your enemies, this gives an incredible advantage with many options. Chances are, you will be able to take at least one or two gates using Tsathoggua to capture Cultists and Monsters that stand in your way. *Burrow* maximizes your efficiency.
* **Timing** - You'll need to spend anywhere from 22 to 30 power to get all your spellbooks. Don't put them off, lest the game ends and you don't qualify for victory! Try and get 1 to 2 per turn (e.g. 1st turn "Pay 3: Everyone Loses 1", 2nd turn "Pay 3: Everyone gains 1"), and try to do your ritual before the cost rises too much.

## Opening Strategies

### Opening 1

A. Sleepy

1. 8 Power
2. Lose 3 power, each/one/all players Loses 1/Gains 3 Power. Take **Cursed Slumber**. 5 Power remains
3. Use Cursed Slumber to hide starting Gate (-1). 4 Power
4. Build and Occupy Gate (-3). 1 Power
5. Summon wizard (-1 Power). 0 Power
6. Repeat.

### Opening 2

A. Early Riser

Turn 1:

1. 8 Power
2. Move a Cultist somewhere adjacent to starting area. 7 Power
3. Build a Gate in that area. 4 Power
4. Summon a Formless Spawn at the new gate. 1 Power
5. Summon a Wizard at the old gate. 0 Power
6. Death From Below the 2nd Wizard to your new gate

Turn 2:

1. 10 Power
2. Awaken Tsathoggua. 2 Power
3. Lethargy until everyone else is out of power. 2 Power
4. Next strategies depend on what spellbook you took for awakening Tsathoggua:
	1. Burrow - If there's an adjacent enemy gate with 1 Cultist, move Tsathoggua and 1 Cultist in, then take the gate over. If there's more than 1 Cultist, you can instead move Tsathoggua and the Wizard in, then Capture it, then next turn take Energy Nexus so that Tsathoggua is safe from reprisal.
	2. Capture Monster - If there are adjacent enemy monsters, move in and capture them
	3. Anything Else - There's nothing specific you can do, so it's probably a good idea to summon a Serpent Man in your Starting Area (so that you have at least 1 Combat dice there, to ward off easy raids from others).

## Story

*When the men...went down into N'kai's black abyss with their great atom-power searchlights they found living things—living things that oozed along stone channels and worshipped onyx and basalt images of Tsathoggua. But they were not toads like Tsathoggua himself. Far worse—they were amorphous lumps of viscous black slime that took temporary shapes for various purposes. The explorers of K'n-yan did not pause for detailed observations, and those who escaped alive sealed the passage leading from red-litten Yoth down into the gulfs of nether horror. Then all the images of Tsathoggua in the land of K'n-yan were dissolved...and the cult was abolished forever.
--H.P. Lovecraft*
Of course it all started with a dame. I don't even need to tell you that, do I? It always starts with a dame. This one had a creepy vibe to her I just couldn't place. I felt she regarded me the way a female praying mantis sizes up a potential mate.

So, she comes knocking on my office door that evening, just as I was getting ready to throw in the towel for the day. As usual, the only phone calls I'd received that whole afternoon were bill collectors and irate drunks. She comes in slinking like an alley cat in heat; gloved fingers tracing lightly over every tchotchke littering this dump.

I motion her to the chair in front of my desk, and try to get to business. I'm expecting the usual: cheating spouses, familial squabbles... I shoulda been so lucky.

A few cool pleasantries are exchanged, and then the weird really begins. She starts in about her uncle who just kicked off. Implies the guy used to be into weird stuff, and she's trying to track down his more... esoteric... possessions. I'm thinking we're talking about vintage Russian snuff films on Betamax, but no. She starts in on an old book. I couldn't spell the thing's name, but she corrected me as "pnakotic." Apparently written by a sorcerer from, get this, Atlantis. Written by "Klarkash-Ton". Of Atlantis, I guess.

So I'm thinking that what I've got is a class-A fruitcake, with an extra helping of nuts. Then something happened that at once made me think I didn't want anywhere near this case.

I'm sitting, nodding, trying to come up with an excuse to get her out of my office without too much drama when I catch a sliver of movement out of the corner of my eye. Something slinky and black—I figure it's the neighbor's cat. Then the room goes dark. I spin in my chair, and there's this... don't know how to describe it. This black gel, ropy black slime which—I'm serious here—is climbing all over the windows, blacking it out. And there's a crack, and then a smash as the window implodes inward. This formless goop comes thundering through the window, a seemingly endless volume. I grab my trusty .44 and pop off a couple of rounds, but it's like shooting jello. It goes right for the dame. It bumrushes her, and she's screaming for a couple seconds, and then she is completely engulfed.

Now everything is quiet. I'm standing there with my gob hanging open as the blob oozes back to the window. I swear it smirked at me—it didn't have a face, but its surface twisted up like a mad grin. One dropping tendril reaches slowly towards me and I leap back—it stops and *waves*. The thing takes longer to squeeze out the window, because, just like a python that swallowed a moose, there's a spastically-twitching bulge in the middle. After a few seconds the dame must have run out of air, because the twitching stopped.

I feel like I should report this, but I never even got the dame's name.
—Ben Monroe

Epilogue
*"The end came unexpectedly. I always thought it would be zombies or aliens or nuclear weapons. Instead, it was this ooze. It was as if the earth itself was falling apart, bleeding black tar. You couldn't fight it any more than you could fight the ocean. Slowly, but surely, the ooze dragged us from our homes, from our families. It dragged us to that awful beast's waiting maw. I can still see it, every time I close my eyes."
—David Mendiola*