Clues

Clues tokens are an in-game currency obtained and spent through various methods, representing secrets and lore about the Ancient One. The Clue tokens have numbers or names corresponding to the spaces on the Map on one side of the token. Clues are kept facedown in the Clue pool until they are spawned, discarded, or gained by investigators.

## Interact with Clues

### Spawning Clues

Clues can be spawned (drawn from the unused pile of Clues and placed on the space marked on their obverse side) in any of the following ways:

* Spawning at the beginning of the game. The number of Clues spawned depends on the number of investigators in the game.
* Spawning as part of the Mythos phase. All Green Mythos cards spawn Clues, while some Blue ones will. Yellow ones will never spawn Clues.
* An investigator action may spawn a Clue under certain specific conditions ( Mandy Thompson and  Roland Banks can do this).
* A Location Encounter in London will generally spawn Clues upon successful resolution.

### Obtaining Clues

*See also: Research Encounters*
Clues can be obtained in any of the following ways:

* An investigator may start the game with a Clue (e.g.  Akachi Onyele).
* An investigator action may give the player a Clue under certain specific conditions (e.g.  Trish Scarborough).
* An investigator on a space where a Clue has spawned may resolve a Research Encounter. Successful resolution usually grants the player that Clue.
* An investigator may gain a Clue with a Defeated Investigator Encounter (e.g.  Joe Diamond).
* Some possessions, Spells, Conditions may have an effect that can give Clues to investigators if a specific condition is met (e.g. Mineralogy Research).

Clues that are drawn come from the Clue pool. Clues cannot be spawned or gained from the Clue pool if the Clue pool and discard pile are empty.

### Spending Clues

Clues can be spent in any of the following ways:

* A Clue can be spent to re-roll a die during a test. This can be repeated if desired. Some abilities or cards increase the re-roll efficiency of Clues.
* A Clue can be spent to solve a Mystery. The number of Clues required to solve a mystery depends on the number of investigators in the game.
* Similarly, Clues can be spent to solve a Rumor.
* Although less common, Clues may be required to gain the "pass" effect of an encounter.
* An investigator action can require to spend a Clue (e.g.  Patrice Hathaway).

### Discarding Clues

When a Clue token is discarded, it is placed in a faceup discard pile near the Clue pool until the Clue pool is empty. When there are no Clue tokens remaining in the Clue pool, place all discarded Clue tokens facedown in the Clue pool and randomize them.

### Placing Clues

An effect that states "place 1 Clue on [a card]" means to take a Clue from the Clue pool and place it on the indicated card. If the effect requires you to discard or spend 1 Clue to place 1 Clue on a card, you can directly place the spent or discarded Clue on that card to save a step.

An effect that states "place that Clue on [a card]" means to take the Clue directly mentioned earlier in the effect and place it on the indicated card. Using a replacement effect to spend fewer Clues or spend something else instead of that Clue will result in nothing being placed on the card.

### Other Uses

If a player is told to "move to a random space", draw a random Clue from the pool, note its location, and place the player on that space. Discard the Clue when finished.

## Advanced Technicalities

* When a Clue is discarded, **it is not added back to the current Clue pool**. This is to ensure equal probability of all Clue locations being encountered.
* When a Clue is obtained from a Research Encounter, **the Clue obtained is always the token by which the Research Encounter was activated**. If the Research Encounter, another card, or ability allows you to gain additional Clues from successful resolution of the Research Encounter, these Clues are gained from the current Clue pool.
* When drawing Clues, if the current Clue pool becomes empty, the discarded Clues should be added back into the pool to form a new Clue pool.
* Clues are considered possessions when an investigator dies of  Health or  Sanity loss. This means that the Clues will stay with the body of the investigator and can be recovered upon encountering the deceased investigator.
* Clues may be traded between investigators during a Trade Action.  Jacqueline Fine may trade Clues with an investigator no matter what space they share.
* It is generally considered unwise to spend a Clue token for re-rolling except as a last resort, especially since the introduction of   Focus tokens to gameplay with the  Mountains of Madness expansion.

## References

1. ↑ Official answer from Nikki Valens for Mysteries on  *BoardGameGeek*.
2. ↑ Official answer from Nikki Valens for The Silver Key on  *BoardGameGeek*.