Arkham Champion – Nevermore

Check out the deck that accompanies this article, as well as a full mechanical breakdown, here: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/36878/nevermore-arkham-champions-1.0

Intro

When upon a midnight dreary warlocks ponder deep and eerie

Secrets from their dark and dangerous volumes of forgotten lore,

Plotting some poor soul’s entrapping…suddenly there comes a rapping,

As of something gently tapping crooked birds’ claws at the door–

’tis the hero Nevermore!

Welcome, everyone, to the first entry in this new series of superhero-themed character concepts for Arkham Horror: The Card Game! Today we will be getting to know Nevermore, the Champions project’s requisite angsty, roof-stalking, darkness-loving member. She stands apart from many of her dark and brooding peers across the genre due to one major detail: in addition to being proficient in melee combat, investigation, parkour, and stealth, she is a highly skilled sorceress with a special affinity for counterspells…and death magic. Furthermore, unlike at least one notable member of her archetype, she has no qualms about killing and in fact views it as the safest way to dispose of the warlocks she hunts–though if they’re particularly powerful, she may have to kill them several times before it sticks.

Without further ado, let’s make our way to the gabled rooftops of Arkham, where a strange birdlike silhouette is gazing down across her chosen territory…

Backstory

Agnes Baker has bad dreams.

She’s always had them, in fact, at least as far back as she can remember. She dreams of some distant, antique land of ice and mighty mountain peaks, where a glorious city rears its ebony towers against the biting wind and strangely-dressed people ride giant corvids through the air. She dreams of the atrocities committed there, the awful things that were done in the pursuit of knowledge and power.

Worst of all, she dreams of another her, another Agnes, one who screams terrible lies into the wind and makes the world believe them.

But with so many years of practice, Agnes grew skilled at ignoring the dreams, at functioning with only a few hours of sleep snatched between bouts of sleep paralysis and waking up in a cold sweat at some new horror born out of her subconscious. As an adult she got a job working at Velma’s diner and led an ordinary–even fulfilling–life, but for her nightly demons.

Until the Lodge came.

One day a group of men and women in smart suits knocked on her door. When she let them in they told her they were part of an organization, a powerful and secret organization, sworn to protect Arkham by gathering the world’s darkest and most precious secrets together under their care. Secrets, they claimed, like the ones that hid inside her own head. They gave long speeches about the nobility of their cause and the great responsibility they carried, and how she could change the world by sharing her knowledge with them.

When Agnes claimed she knew no secrets, they asked about her dreams. When she told them to get out of her home and leave her alone, they drew weapons and tried to kill her. For the first time, she heard the voice of the other Agnes in her waking hours, and she let it guide her–using sorcery she had no comprehension of, she easily dispatched her attackers, countering their magical assaults and bringing their physical ones to a bloody halt. With the Lodge strike force dead, Agnes burned the bodies using her newfound sorcerous fire and collapsed into sleep.

For the first time, in her dreams, she fought the other her through the peaks and spires of her strange dream-city, and she lost. Over and over again her double struck her down, with physical prowess and magical power. Until the Woman appeared, wearing a smooth mask upon her face, and offered her the mask of the bird. She promised to help Agnes learn to control these echoes, not to free her from the dreams but to help her channel those dreams as a source of power and knowledge. Agnes accepted, and with the mask’s help she drove back her double and triumphed.

The next morning, Agnes woke up wearing the beaklike mask. Begrudgingly accepting that nothing in her world would ever be the same anymore, she began leading a dual life. By day, she is still the mild-mannered, cheerful waitress Agnes Baker. But when night comes, she adopts the darker persona Nevermore, a magical vigilante who hunts witches and warlocks who would abuse dark power for their own gain.

Powers

Sorcery – Nevermore’s chief skill is the sorcerous knowledge she obtains from her previous life, which she has since supplemented via study of her own. Most significantly, she possesses powers over death that allow her to sustain considerable injury without perishing, and she can manipulate the departing souls of others to gain power or information. She is also an accomplished combat mage, who has enhanced her own speed, agility, and strength with enchantments on her various equipment and has extensively studied magical countermeasures in order to restrain and counteract the mages she fights on a regular basis. Finally, spells of detection and location are a key tool in her investigative arsenal.

Agility – through her recent practice, Nevermore has become highly skilled at parkour, climbing, and otherwise maneuvering around the city above-ground. She has also amplified these skills with magic, including giving herself the ability to glide through the air with her long leather duster acting as a magical parachute.

Knife-Fighting – another skill amplified by reincarnated memories, Nevermore’s hand-to-hand combat focuses on a speed-over-strength single-knife style that makes her lethal at close range. Her limited reach does require a distraction, mundane or magical stealth and/or speed, or other maneuvers in order to close the distance with a firearm-wielding opponent without being brought down.

Corvid Familiars – Nevermore is often attended by a number of crows and ravens ranging from small numbers to a massive, frightening flock. Though they do not always heed her instructions, she can sometimes command them to attack enemies, steal objects, or gather information that she can then use to gain an edge.

Vignette – Take Thy Beak From Out My Heart

“AHHHHHH!”

I wake up screaming in a dark room. Jesus, where the hell am I? I don’t just mean dark like the lights are off, even though they are–this place seems dark like it’s MADE of shadows. Maybe I’m just still addled from the hit to the head. It was a hit to the head, right? Why can’t I remember–

Oh my god, the crow-thing!

Before I can process everything I just saw, a voice cuts through the space. It’s low and echoes around, which I don’t mind telling you freaks me the fuck out. I can’t tell where it’s coming from.

“What happened?”

My head aches. Something about this isn’t right. Where am I? Then it dawns on me–the guy who hired us, that Sanford fella, this is absolutely the kind of creepy power trip he likes. They must’ve picked me up after…

…oh god, after it killed them all. Cameron, Aiofe…

“Tell us what happened. Now.”

“Give me a second, Jesus!”

There is silence and I try to catch my breath. I knew this job was a bad idea from the moment we got the posting, but work’s been a little scarcer since people started talking about those masked freaks with a hate-on for us unsavory types. Some of Arkham’s best hired guns up and went to look for work in Boston, even. But we stuck it out. So when these rich morons offered a whole load of cash to bring in some shipment of those old archeological bits that rich morons go gaga over, I figured it would be easy money compared to pulling jobs for the gangs.

Plus, we wouldn’t even have to get all bloody, for once. That’s what I’d thought, at least.

Before the voice can start bothering me again, I take a deep breath and start.

“Just so you know, I expect you to deliver the cash no matter what happened to your cutesy rocks. I lost a lot of people out there on this bullshit job and you didn’t give us an ounce of warning what we were up against.”

The voice doesn’t respond, but I’m pretty convincing, and I figure against saps like this I can take what I want if they get funny about it. So I keep on going.

“Crates came in like you said, after the pier closed. Boat dropped ’em off–can’t say I’m a big fan of the folks you had bringing them in, they really put Cam on edge and he’s sensitive about things. He…was sensitive about things. God.”

I keep forgetting and then it comes flashing right back to me, the looks on their dead faces. I’ve killed so many people, lost so many people, and death’s never hit me like it’s doing right now. That’s fucked.

“Where were the crates stored?” The voice interjects.

“What, you couldn’t find your own shipments?” Then it dawns on me. “Ah. Crazy monster chick took them, eh? Man, you idiots must be in way over your head in something.”

“Just tell me.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Third row, near the back. Teo and your guy, what’s-his-name, stood watch by ’em.”

“Thank you. You have been quite helpful.”

“That’s my job, ain’t it? Anyway we had the truck coming in an hour so we settled in to wait for it. Cam got fidgety–at the time I just figured it was left over from those folks that brought up the crates, but now I know I was so wrong–and went to do a walk-around. Sal was dealing the rest of us a hand of cards when we heard him scream.”

I swallow.

“He came sprinting back into the lamplight from the warehouse depths with this look on his face like he’d seen some crazy demon–and then just as he got close to us something dropped from the sky, like a piece of the night had ripped free and shot down like it was fired from some enormous gun. I heard half the bones in his body break as it bore him to the ground.”

I can still see his lifeless body, bent at weird angles and facedown in the dirt. And that…thing, the thing with the bird face, slowly standing up over him…

“What attacked you?”

“It was like a bird, and a dame, with this big coat that looked kinda like wings and a knife…and her face was this dark beak with eyes that caught the lamplight and glowed like, god, like hell itself. I don’t mind telling you, tough as I am, that image of her standing over Cam’s corpse is going to haunt me until the day I die. That face…that horrible face.”

“It was not a face, it was a mask. The mask does not matter. Only the face.”

“Jesus, man, I’m telling you how all my friends were fucking murdered right in front of me, will you cut me some damn slack?? I didn’t see her damn face.”

Once again, the voice recedes into silence. I give it a suitably sullen pause before continuing.

“We scrambled for our guns. The thing closed with Sal before she could get hers out of the holster and opened her throat with that long knife. Blood just…sprayed. I’m used to blood, but truth be told I’m a sucker for strangling and breaking. Clean deaths. Even a gunshot is usually better than a knife.”

I can feel the haze in my mind clearing as I talk. The memories are slotting into place, catching up to whatever moment I’d lost consciousness.

“Anyway. She moved fast, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Aoife and I laid down some crossfire with our automatics but there were these little flashes of light, like afterimages of symbols on the air in front of her, and our shots just went wide. She couldn’t get close, though, and I was desperately trying to figure out what I’d do when our clips ran out when Teo and your man rushed around the corner following the sound of gunfire.”

As I realize what had come next I stop and try real hard to figure out if I’d been drunk or hallucinating, because damn if it doesn’t make an ounce of sense. Then again, we’d been attacked by a woman in a bird suit who could dodge bullets–what the hell does “sense” even mean anymore?

“Ok, you’re gonna think this is crazy, but I swear to you your guy raised his hands and said these weird unintelligible things that made my eyes hurt and–this is the crazy part–threw some kind of blue fire right from his hands! Like he was a walking flamethrower! Except it wasn’t entirely fire, it crackled like lightning, it was so strange. Strange enough that Aoife and I just sort of stopped firing in shock.”

I should’ve been stronger, smarter, harder to stun. What kind of a hardened criminal just abandons all his combat training at the sight of a magic trick?

“And that killed her.”

“Your attacker?” The voice asks, somewhat mechanically.

I take a deep breath.

“No. Aoife. Because that electric fire thing shot right at the bird-girl and SHE CAUGHT IT. Drew something in the air with afterimages and then caught it with her bare hands and whipped it towards us. We couldn’t get our guns back up in time. Aoife took most of the hit and I saw her skin being burnt off, it was horrible. Horrible. I mostly got the shockwave but it threw me up hard against a crate and I lost consciousness for a second.”

That hit must’ve been what took me out of the fight, let me live until these creeps picked me up. But even as I think that, I realize it can’t be entirely true–because memories are still filtering in.

“Um, I remember bits and pieces after that. Aoife dead near me, the bird disarming Teo and snapping his neck, then doing…actually I’d rather not talk about what she did to your fiery fella. Then…I think…oh, Christ, she came walking back towards me.”

I can feel myself hyperventilating. The memory feels…so REAL, so current, it makes my heart race and sweat stand on my forehead.

“You needn’t tell us any more. Take a rest now.”

But I can’t stop myself, the words just come tumbling out.

“I saw Aiofe’s gun near me. I don’t know where mine was but hers had survived the blast. It was just out of reach, if I went for it maybe I could get it before she killed me.”

“That is enough. This interview is over.”

“Hey, fuck you, this is my story! I didn’t watch all my friends die and then get bludgeoned unconscious just for you to disrespect me!”

There’s a pause.

“No, you didn’t.”

“So what happened next was…what happened next…” Did I go for the gun? I can’t…can’t remember, everything is just…black.

Then I realize what the voice just said. Oh. I guess I know why my memories aren’t returning anymore. A moment later I realize I’m laughing, coldly and hysterically. My face feels wet–when I reach up, I realize I’m crying.

It’s cold.

“I guess I didn’t have to worry about being haunted by nightmares for very long, after all.”

This time, when the voice speaks, it’s a little sad. Which is weird as hell, I won’t lie to you.

“No. At least you may have some peace from that. Now, please, rest.”

The darkness sort of melts away around me. No, wait, it isn’t melting–it’s coalescing, like a cloak of shadow that has been wrapped around me is being withdrawn. Behind it is just…light.

The shadows gather up into a shape, humanoid, with a birdlike silhouette. I’m too tired to scream. Actually, I’m not even all that sure I’m still afraid. Just tired.

At least I don’t have to be alone. Hopefully wherever I’m going, my crew is there too.

The shadow-shape dissipates, or withdraws, and I let the light take me.

~~~

The ethereal light around Nevermore’s hand and in the mercenary’s eyes fades as she takes her fingers off his forehead. She pulls her knife from his chest, where it struck directly into his heart, and wipes it clean on his sleeve. Then the dark figure stands and opens her eyes behind the mask that so many have come to fear.

The warehouse is a mess. Bullet holes riddle the crates–and the few that struck home will cost her considerable time and energy to heal. The various corpses strewn about will probably be cleaned up by morning, but in a few places azure flame still crackles and burns and threatens to spread. And in the center of it all, the shadowy silhouette of a woman in a cloak–does she still count as a woman? As a human?–stands motionlessly. Before her, the group’s leader is slumped over, hand outstretched and just barely touching the grip of Aoife’s fallen handgun.

A crow creaks its familiar call overhead, and she knows without looking up that they are gathering at the the same open skylight she used to enter the building.

There is not much time before the truck he mentioned arrives. She cased the joint before beginning her attack, profiled the guards, skimmed their minds. Now she need only retrace the steps of Teo and the Lodge warlock to find the crate and destroy its contents. She draws something in the dirt, borrowing enough blood from her fallen foe to enhance the circle, and watches as witchlight illuminates the footsteps of the two late arrivals.

She turns to go, then pauses and turns back. With one gloved hand she closes the mercenary leader’s eyelids.

Then she’s off in a flash of black and grey, sprinting through the warehouse shelves, almost gliding above the ground. There is work to be done.

Behind her, crows flutter down in the room and begin investigating the bodies she left in her wake.

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed the first Arkham Champions deck breakdown! This deck has actually been a long time in the making, as my second-ever campaign involved a Meat Cleaver Agnes deck, and since then I’ve drafted several Sixth Sense/Scavenging setups. When I started designing these superheroes, Agnes seemed like a perfect fit for the Medico–and from there, the dark, brooding, dangerous thematics basically built themselves.

I promise they won’t all be this dark and probably won’t all be this violent–but this is Arkham, and gritty is the name of the game.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll wing your way back to us next time when we meet the original Arkham Champion, the first deck that inspired me to make all the others…Eulogy!