Manual — Cthulhu Wars: The Sleeper Expansion

Copyright © Sandy Petersen 2014 1

The Sleeper Expansion

I. Components
• Faction Card
• 6 Spellbooks
• Rulebook
• 18 figures (6 different types, all orange):
o Power marker; Doom marker
o 6 Acolyte Cultists
o 4 Formless Spawn
o 3 Serpent Men
o 2 Wizards
o 1 Great Old One (Tsathoggua)
II. Set Up
6 Acolyte Cultists and a controlled Gate in the Area containing the Sleeper Glyph (on Earth, N’Kai in
North America)
III. Playing the Sleeper
Your faction is not particularly interested in combat, and instead your units debilitate your foes outside
of battle. You are not the quickest faction to gain the lead, but can be lethally petty.
In the early game, try to build up your power base. Summon cheap Monsters the first round, so
you can start to spawn better ones via Death From Below. Do not discount the usefulness of Cursed
Slumber, especially early game.
In the late game, ability accumulation bears grim fruit for your foes. With Tsathoggua on the
map, you can spend Action after Action in Lethargy. If your foes don’t react, you’ll be the last player with
Power left, and use it to march Tsathoggua (cheaply, using Burrow) to Capture Monsters. Even though
Tsathoggua’s Combat is low late in the turn, a couple of Formless Spawns let you inflict Kills. Demand
Sacrifice either protects you from retribution or makes your opponent pay for it. If you move with a
Wizard, you can use Energy Nexus to run away before any fight.
• Burrow → spectacularly useful. Doubled up with Lethargy, you save Power like crazy.
• Cursed Slumber → gives you a smaller map footprint, plus you can use its cancelation to teleport
a Gate anywhere on the map. Then Cursed Slumber a new Gate from your home base and set
up a Gate factory.
• Energy Nexus → this spellbook has SO many different ramifications and possibilities we can’t list
them all! Just one possibility – use Cursed Slumber to move a threatened Gate off-map.
• Ancient Sorcery → again, too many choices to list them all. Again, one possibility – copy
Cthulhu’s faction ability to replace a dead Tsathoggua on the cheap (plus earn an Elder Sign).

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• Demand Sacrifice → they’ll spend the Doom point when facing Tsathoggua, but otherwise, you
can act with impunity.
• Capture Monster → even for the most inexperienced players, the advantages are clear.
A. Thwarting the Sleeper
The Sleeper is craptastic in combat until he has 2+ Formless Spawn out. Take advantage of his early
feebleness. Unfortunately, with Demand Sacrifice, he is hard to kill. Sometimes you just have to suck up
the Doom point loss. To suppress the Sleeper, take actions that force him to spend Power and lose his
late-turn advantage. For instance – killing 2 Formless Spawn costs him 6 Power to restore. Of course,
killing Tsathoggua is always a treat. Without losing a Doom point, you can eliminate his cultists outside
of Battle (using Dreams, Zingaya or just plain Capture). He usually does not have many Gates, and they
are often ill-protected, so it is effective to strike at his Gates, even if you can’t Kill him, but merely Pain
him away.
B. Sleeper: 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
IV. FAQ
Q. What exactly does it mean when it says Tsathoggua’s Combat is equal to his enemy’s Power “at the
moment Battle is declared”?
A. This means that Power spent by the enemy faction during pre-Battle or Battle (or, obviously, post-
Battle) won’t affect Tsathoggua’s Combat dice. (Power spent to declare a Battle IS deducted from his
Combat total since this clearly happens before the battle.)
For example, if Opener of the Way uses Channel Power during a Battle, this doesn’t decrease
Tsathoggua’s Combat total, which is already determined.

Q. Can I use Lethargy forever? Thus preventing the game from ever ending?
A. We recommend defenestration as the quickest solution to such a player. More seriously – The Sleeper
cannot use Lethargy if no one else is active – just go ahead and finish out the turn.

Q. How does Ancient Sorcery affect Great Cthulhu or Yellow Sign?
A. Ancient Sorcery doesn’t affect the targeted faction at all. However, I think what you mean is “how
does The Sleeper benefit from using Ancient Sorcery on Great Cthulhu or Yellow Sign”. The answer is that
any Unique Ability that names a specific Great Old One allows the Sleeper to apply that ability to
Tsathoggua. Thus, if Ancient Sorcery affects Great Cthulhu, the Sleeper can re-Awaken Tsathoggua for
only 4 Power (and he earns 1 Elder Sign upon Awakening any Great Old One!) With regards to Yellow
Sign, during Gather Power, the Sleeper gains 1 Power for each Area containing both one or more of his
units and a Desecration token (which, admittedly, had to be created by Yellow Sign).

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Q. If a Serpent Man uses Ancient Sorcery on Crawling Chaos, giving The Sleeper the Flight ability, can this be combined with the Burrow spellbook?
A. Yes. The Sleeper’s units are able to fly while burrowing. Tsathoggua is not from this part of the universe.

Q. What does it mean that an Action must originate in the Battle Area when using Energy Nexus?
A. It means the Action, if tied to map Areas, must begin there. So, for example, you can only use it to Move OUT of the Area (Burrow would apply), and not into it. You could only use Ancient Sorcery if the Serpent Man came from that Area. You could only Recruit, Summon, or Capture a Cultist or Monster in that Area. In a highly unusual situation, such as when using Mother Hydra’s Zygote Action, then at least one Recruited Cultist must be placed in that Area.

Q. Can I do the Battle action with Energy Nexus?
A. Yes. This would result in an immediate Battle, with you as attacker, which would be followed by the already-declared Battle, between whatever units remain. You can only do two Battles in a row (i.e., you cannot “chain” Battles together into an infinite loop using Energy Nexus).

Q. Can I do the <insert action> with Energy Nexus?
A. You can do any action available to your faction with Energy Nexus. Some are pointless, however, such as Lethargy.

Q. Can I use Energy Nexus even if the battle in the Area was not declared against me (or by me)?
A. Yes. For example, if two other factions Battled in an Area contained a Wizard, Sleeper could immediately Recruit a Cultist. If all the units involved in the Battle were Killed and Pained out, then Sleeper could take control of an abandoned Gate on his turn, without having to use up his Action to Recruit a Cultist there!

Q. What happens to Opener of the Way units using Million Favored Ones if Energy Nexus removes all units from the Area before the Battle starts?
A. Though no dice are rolled, the Battle was still declared and the Power was spent, so the Opener of the Way’s units would still promote!

Q. When the Sleeper is targeted by the Dread Curse of Azathoth, does Demand Sacrifice apply?
A. No. In addition, Demand Sacrifice does not affect any spellbooks or abilities which eliminate units. Thus, it does not protect against Black Goat’s Ghroth, Cthulhu’s Dreams or Devour, Crawling Chaos’s Abduct, Windwalker’s Berserkergang, and so forth. Demand Sacrifice only comes into play during the actual dice-roll of Combat. Here is an example from play: Angela, playing Great Cthulhu, attacks Rich, playing The Sleeper. Both players have all Spellbooks active. Angela’s force consists of Cthulhu and two Starspawn, while Rich has 2 Wizards and a Serpent Man. Rich invokes Demand Sacrifice, but Angela refuses to pay the toll, which means any Kills she rolls will be transformed into Pains. Pre-Battle, Angela uses Cthulhu’s Devour ability to eliminate one

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of Rich’s units. He chooses a Wizard to be Devoured. Then combat dice are rolled. Rich rolls 1 die for his Serpent Folk (Wizard Combat is 0). Angela rolls 12 dice. She gets plenty of hits, but her Kills become Pains, so Rich’s remaining units simply retreat out of the Area.

Q. Does Tsathoggua have to be personally involved in a Battle to use Demand Sacrifice?
A. No. So long as Tsathoggua is in play, Demand Sacrifice applies to all Battles against Sleeper’s units.

Q. Can the Opener of the Way use They Break Through to summon a Monster onto the Cursed Slumber Gate?
A. No. The Gate & Cultist under Cursed Slumber are immune to enemy abilities.

Q. Can the Sleeper choose to eliminate his Cultist on a Cursed Slumber Gate to satisfy losses inflicted by Ghroth?
A. Yes, but he doesn’t have to, even if it is the only Cultist he has left. If he DOES choose to lose it, the Gate becomes abandoned and now provides Power to all factions. It can still be returned to the map by Sleeper in a later Action.

Q. If a Cursed Slumber Gate has a High Priest on it, can that High Priest be turned in for Power (see the High Priest expansion for details) and if so, what happens to the Gate?
A. Yes, he can be turned in. The Gate becomes abandoned, as described in the previous answer.

Q. On the Yuggoth map, can I transform the Cursed Slumber Cultist into a Brain Cylinder?
A. Yes. Think of it as him having a really bad dream.

Q. If I have acquired the Ghast neutral Monsters, how and when would I spawn them via Death From Below?
A. They would count as a 2-cost Monster. If you chose to spawn them, you would only get one, so it is probably preferable to get some other Monster, if available.

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