Iastur

The elder god **Iastur** is a mad author who created the world, and is going to destroy it to start over. He has spent eternity locked in a mad cycle of creation and destruction as his madness makes the world flawed and due to its flaws he always ends up wiping the slate clean. By sharing secrets of the world, its creation and what exists beyond it he can drive humans to insanity as well.

Iastur starts with a Supplicant agent and 2 recruitment points.

He is held back by 9 seals. The 'minimum world panic from god awakening' starts at 0% and progresses to 75% by turn 360 when the last seal breaks and Iastur fully awakes. His max Power starts at 1 and reaches 10 when he awakes.

In addition to the listed effects, each seal that breaks gives 1 current and maximum power

## The laughing god's tome:

Iastur's powers are tied to a book, the Laughing God's tome, through which he shares his **madness**-spreading secrets. The tome can be put in a location, increasing its madness by 3 per turn, or placed into a character's inventory (through the steal or access vault challenges) which reduces the character's sanity by 1 per turn until it reaches zero and they drop the book. When the book is sitting in a location heroes will eventually bind the tome, and study it to hurt Iastur.

A hero's motivation to bind the tome is based on how strong the Madness modifier is in its location (the tome's menace will be approximately 2/3 of the charge of the Madness modifier).

The quest to bind the tome has complexity 5 and is not stat-based (at least when the tome is a location modifier)

When a hero has bound the tome, they get the item "Laughing Tome (Bound)" in their inventory. While it's in their inventory, they can perform the quest "Weaken Iastur" in any human settlement (and it'll almost always be their top priority). "Weaken Iastur" is a non-stat-based quest with complexity 5. When it's completed, either Iastur loses all of his Power (if current power is above 1/2 of max Power) or else all agents gain 5 profile and 5 menace. Weaken Iastur has the negative tag 'Madness'.

If the Laughing Tome is held too long by heroes it automatically drops and is re-usable, without harming Iastur (to address the rare case where a hero gets very distracted while carrying it)

After the tome has been used to weaken Iastur, it is dropped in that location as the modifier "Laughing King's Tome (Asleep)". It does not spread madness while in that state.

Iastur's power gain over time is affected by the state of his tome in the world. He gains power at 150% the normal rate if his tome is unbound in a human settlement or in the hands of someone not under your control, and he gains power at 50% the normal rate otherwise.

You can either have an agent pick it up there with the "Collect Tome" challenge or have an agent summon it again at the Elder Tomb using the challenge "Summon Tome":

"Summons the Laughing King's Tome from anywhere if it is in the ether or lost. Allows you to add it to the agent's inventory.
NOTE: This summoning will fail if a character has it in their possession. If a character holds it you can steal it back, or wait for it to drive them insane (if it is not bound)."

If you take the bound tome from a hero, it can be unbound with the challenge Unbind Tome:

The tome can be placed directly onto the map with Place Tome, and can be used to increase its location's madness even faster using Drive Word of Mouth:

#### Everyone Shall Play

A passive 'power' unlocked when the 5th seal breaks. "The Laughing Tome's dropped effects now influence neighboring locations. The Laughing Tome, when influencing a single character, also causes madness at their location"

## Iastur's Powers

The preferences which can be shifted are:

Cruelty, Combat, Ambition, Cooperation, Danger, Elf, Gold, Human, Madness, Orc, Undead, Disease, Shadow, Discord, Deep Ones

#### Let's see what this game brings

Cost: varies based on seals broken; 1 Power when 0-2 seals broken, 2 power when 3-4 seals broken, 3 power when 5-6 seals broken, 4 power when 7-8 seals broken, and 5 power when 9 seals broken

Available at the start

Infiltrate a location with 0% current infiltration (behaves like SWWF's "Eyes in the Shadows")

#### The Devil Finds Work...

Cost: 1 Power

Available after seal 2 breaks

Make one non-Chosen One hero or insane ruler dislike something. The targeted character must have fewer than 5 dislikes + hates.

Sets the status to dislike regardless if the hero liked, loved, or was indifferent to the motivator.

#### ...For Idle Hands

Cost: 1 Power

Available after seal 3 breaks

Make one non-Chosen One hero or insane ruler like something. The targeted character must have fewer than 7 likes + extreme likes.

Sets the status to like regardless if the hero disliked, hated, or was indifferent to the motivator.

#### It's all Just a Game

Cost: 3 Power

Available after seal 3 breaks

Can only target a hero who is going to attack another character. Reduces that hero's sanity by 14. If their sanity hits 0 they'll go insane, and may become hostile to other heroes.

#### Stories Told in Dreams

Cost: 3 Power

Available after seal 4 breaks

Increase the madness in a human location by 50%

#### Fascinate

Cost: 3 Power

Available after seal 4 breaks

Amplify the personality of a character (hero or ruler) holding the Laughing Tome, turning ordinary likes and dislikes into extreme likes or dislikes

#### Incoherent Thoughts

Cost: 3 Power

Available after seal 6 breaks

Can only target a non-Chosen One hero who's performing a challenge

Disrupts the targeted hero for 3 turns, cancelling their current task and rendering them unable to take action temporarily.

#### Hysterical Tome

Cost: 5 Power

Available after seal 7 breaks

Move the tome to a new, random location while leaving a fake with the same madness-spreading effect behind. The fake is a modifier called Hysterical Tome which will only increase madness in its current location, even though "Everyone Shall Play" is unlocked

#### Warp Reality

Cost: 1 Power

Available after seal 9 breaks

"Increases the arcane fortress of the Elder Tomb by 25% (max 100%), protecting your agents from magical attacks as they overwhelm the world with Waves of Madness.

## Awakening

An agent bearing the Laughing Tome can perform the lore-based challenge "Waves of Madness" at the Elder Tomb after he awakes:

lore-based challenge. It is treated as a channeled magic spell (and so the agent casting it can be attacked by heroes with geomancy).

## Strategy

While Iastur's powers are all focused on the spread of madness, his high power generation and ability to manipulate opinions makes him very flexible. In the early game, you have the option of trying to use the Tome to drive important characters insane, or to focus on keeping the Tome under your control for as long as possible for the power generation. If you want to enjoy the Tome's power generation, it's usually better to slip it into a hero's inventory or use Subtle Thievery on an infiltrated settlement, so it doesn't start accruing menace until it's driven the holder insane. Notably, the Chosen One is **not** immune to the Laughing Tome's madness if you infiltrate their home location and put it in their inventory.

Since you can only manipulate rulers' opinions if they are insane, it can be useful to spread madness to the capitals of large nations and drive their sovereigns insane. Rulers of a location don't start losing sanity until madness is **greater than** 100%, and unless you spend a lot of resources protecting the Tome it will usually get bound before its location reaches 100% madness. This also means that two castings of Stories Told in Dreams will not drive a ruler insane on its own, though it will if a Maddening Tongues Supplicant also spends a turn there. One cycle of the Tome plus a single casting of Stories Told in Dreams will also usually be enough to get past 100% madness. Once you unlock Hysterical Tome, it's easy to keep the Laughing Tome in play indefinitely by using the power right before the tome gets bound at its current location.

People's opinions are important to their decision-making, but even people who like a tag will still act against it in times of need. If you want to stop heroes or rulers from doing a specific thing, it's useful to give them multiple opinions that make that thing less likely - for example, if you don't want a ruler to join the Alliance you might make them dislike Cooperation and like Shadow, and if you don't want a hero to consecrate Holy Sites you might make them like both Combat and Shadow.

Normally, most of your victory points as Iastur will not come from madness, but instead come from your agents' other activities. Shadow spread is a simple and effective way to grow victory points, as is forming a large Dark Empire, and Iastur's high power generation makes him particularly good at speeding up the growth of Deep One cults. When Iastur awakens, Waves of Madness can be used to put yourself over the finish line, though it's important to keep the agent channeling the spell well-protected.

Iastur's Supplicant has middling trait options. Favorite Toy lets you play a bit more fast and loose with the Supplicant's menace, and the madness from Maddening Tongues can add up over time, but it's difficult to use precisely since the Supplicant needs to sit in the location for a very long time before it becomes noticeable. Protector of the Tome is badly harmed by the fact that a Tome being carried by the Supplicant is a Tome that isn't spreading madness or contributing to your power growth.

## Victory Text

The art and text displayed upon winning a game depends on which source of victory points is biggest, in line with the various achievements for winning the game in certain ways.

### Shadow:

Iastur reigns in the eternal night. Twisting both mind and physical reality, he constantly tries to finish creation, to fix the imperfections and finally reach some semblance of peace.

### Madness:

The characters in this telling of the Dark God's story were made in his image. Insane and broken-minded, unable to handle the imperfection of the world and the terribly gulf between what is and what should be. They, the world and perhaps Iastur himself will soon be unmade, then remade, in an infinite cycle of flawed creation and obsessive destruction.

### Dark Empire:

Iastur's forces have crushed their enemies, and nothing is left but to find and eradicate the last few stragglers. The insane creator god can rest for a moment, but his obsession will eventually win out, and despite having complete dominion, will lash out in anger at the world's lack of perception, and unmake it, to rebuild it once again, restarting the broken and pointless cycle.

### Dead Population:

The world lies in ruins. It is hard to tell if this was Iastur's plan all along, or simply a consequence of his inability to tolerate his own creation. Humanity's extinction is at hand, along with soonafter the world itself, as Iastur destroys all, only to rebuild it again.

### Ice Age (dead population with a low enough world temperature):

In the cold, the Laughing King reigns over his new bleak and lifeless kingdom. Ice has its own perfection, and creation seems more complete and perfect without humanity intruding in it. The only movement, eventually, will be the perfect movement of the planets through the heavens. Could this be the perfection Iastur seeks?

### Deep Ones:

New creatures now worship Iastur. Perhaps their minds, twisted and alien, can understand the Laughing King's intent.