Well, this is a few new wrinkles, to say the least.
First question, which I'm surprised hadn't come up by now, is what to do with The Crystal's Song if we want to mix it into a multi-curse run.
The ending card for that Curse has a scoring indicator, but nothing that says what to do when you're done with it.
Is this one intended to be there purely as a basic tutorial, and not as something that can be mixed with other curses?
Second, related to the same curse, we now have instructions to
choose one of multiple starting locations
. If we are, in fact, able to mix The Crystal's Song in with other curses, will the
009
starting location available on it override higher-numbered starting locations on other Curses, or do we instead defer to the curse with the set starting location?
Third, and rather more interesting, is what to do with
A Prison of Clouds, The Veins of the Earth, and Armageddon
.
The rule up until now has always been to take the lowest number available as a starting location on any of the curses you take. However, these three all have a new type of setup instruction that hasn't been seen before. On A Prison of Clouds and Armageddon, the card says
"No matter how many curses you are playing with, begin the adventure by putting a 677 card into play."
The Veins of the Earth has the same wording, but
instructs you to start on a 396 card instead.
If playing any combination with A Prison of Clouds and/or Armageddon, the intended behavior seems clear. Likewise, playing any combination with The Veins of the Earth is clear. The problem comes up when you mix those two groups together, as you now have multiple cards instructing you to do mutually-exclusive things. So, the question:
What is the intended starting location when you have both The Veins of the Earth and either or both of A Prison of Clouds and Armageddon in play?
Hi, The Crystal song curse is a stand-alone introductory curse for the game. Since the game ends when you run out of Crystal Exploration cards, it is not meant to be played together with other curses. For the other curses, although you could play "A Prison of Clouds / Armageddon" with "The Veins of the earth", we do not recommend it since it would be VERY difficult to achieve, especially if you haven't played this curses on their own at first. Nevertheless, you'd have to choose where to start your journey between the Terrain cards that their clue proposes, following the rules of multiple curses played at once. Again, we recommend to play these curses one at a time. Hope that helps Bruno
), but The Crystal's Song has to be left out, and mixing the two 677-start curses with the 396-start one is a bad idea if you don't really really know your way around the place.
I've only started the Prison of clouds so far, but given how it starts, I could see how if the 396 curse starts the same way, they might not work together.
Specifically
The fact you start on what's effectively an island, only accessible by air. If there's no other way to get the balloon (no idea if this is true or not), then you'd HAVE to start there to make the curse possible. Unless there's cunning other ways I'm not aware of, which is possible for sure.
It is a misconception that Crystals Song can't be played in a 12 curse run.
It wasn't designed to be, and because of that it has some serious and unusual implications that make a 12-curse run extremely difficult. But it is neither nonfunctional nor impossible.
It works exactly like the cards say it works.
If you run out of Crystal fogs, you draw the Crystal's Song ending card, and your adventure is over. It's a minor victory akin to
History of the Continent
and doesn't count as lifting your other 11 curses, so if you let that happen, you won't be able to finish your 12-curse run.
If you want to lift all 12 curses for a proper 12-curse finish, Crystal's Song has to be last. This is an endeavor of it's own, since Crystal fogs mostly banish themselves and there are only 10 of them. Basically, you have to place them on spaces you know you don't have to go immediately (to avoid flipping them) and every 10 terrain cards (or if you ever put one in a space you need to flip) you need to save and return them all so you don't run out. There are a few places, most notably Turtle Island, that can force you to use your Crystal Fogs unavoidably. Identify these places and avoid them for as long as possible, because every trip to Turtle Island irreparably shortens your Crystal Fog lifeline, forcing you to save even more frequently.
To do the 12-curse run, you must finish the whole 11-curse run under those restrictions, and then finish Crystal's Song.
Is this a fun run? I haven't done it. Honestly it's probably a lot more frustrating than 11-curse, but not more fun. But it's challenging, serious, and weird, and if you want to play a die-hard all-curses-all-expansions run, it exists. Personally, I think it's very cute that the shortest and easiest curse in the game presents arguably the longest and hardest challenge of 12-curse.
If that sounds odious to you, but you still want to play 12-curse with Crystal's Song, an easy house rule is that when you lift Crystal's Song you banish the Crystal's Song clue and any Crystals from your Satchel & Journal pile. DO NOT banish the Crystal's Song curse card itself, you never banish named Curses when you lift them. If you wanted to house rule in some XP or card reward for completion, like most other curses have, you could, but Crystal's Song is so much less effort than any other curse, I wouldn't make it too high.
Personally I'm perfectly happy just excluding the Crystal's Song from a huge multi curse run, my concern was the 4 main white curses being incompatible with each other.
A Beacon in the Night doesn't have any issues playing nice with any other curses (besides, obviously, The Crystal's Song), and A Prison of Clouds and Armageddon are perfectly happy with one another. The Veins of the Earth is the only real problem. :)
Nevertheless, you'd have to choose where to start your journey between the Terrain cards that their clue proposes, following the rules of multiple curses played at once.
But the rules of multiple curses is to start on the lowest numbered terrain card, not to choose where you start. Isn't it?
Firebird 
DV, OG, LG --- 
SI, [CD+SI] --- 
Histoire, Pénitence, Funéraille --- 
[SI+TS]
