On Sunday evening there were not 1, not 2, but 18 spoilers for A Conjuring at Curdle Cove. That’s 30% of the set. Some of these had been seen before, but as prototypes. The ones shown on the stream on Sunday however were the finished articles.

Today I’m going to go over the 6 spoilers from the Veil Chaser Voyagers faction. The seafaring folk of Curdle Cove have dubious loyalties, but do carry the Magus Elite Character type, implying “good guys”. They also bring us the keyword DIVERT, possibly my favourite of the new keywords, which allows you to react to any effect targeting one of your cards and retarget it to the card with DIVERT, so long as that card is a valid target. It’s kind of like DEFEND, but for actions/abilities rather than attacks.

For instance, if the opponent tries to erase Captain Cassius (below) with a Fireball, or Bounce him to your hand, you can DIVERT to any other character on your canvas (as he gives them all DIVERT) and that card gets erased or Bounced instead.

It is worth noting that you can only DIVERT abilities targeting cards on your canvas, so you cannot DIVERT an opponent’s SPLAT to your character. You also have to DIVERT to a valid target, so you cannot DIVERT a Carmella Traitorous (location or object only) to a character. Non-targeted effects like Drain the Woods or Sorrono cannot be DIVERTed. You can also only use the DIVERT keyword on a card once per turn. These limitations aside, it’s still a very strong keyword.

Here’s the legendaries for the faction:

Captain Cassius (formerly Cassius Cuttlethroat) is a clean shaven, muscular, and sartorial Captain, wearing a suspiciously conspicuous pale blue necklace. A 6Δ 6 strength legendary character, who gives all your characters DIVERT means he will be extremely difficult to erase. Gaining 1 for every character on your canvas is a strong ability, so we’ll likely see him in character heavy decks featuring Curdle Cave and Lone Survivor, much like Issadora builds. Carrying all shard colours also means he can be REVEALED with the right rune (Kaunan, Isaz, or Algiz), in the right build. Honestly, I think his gain potential is not massive for the cost. But the resilience he’ll give your boardstate through DIVERT is epic.

The Veil Chaser is his ship with an appropriately liminal name for a boat anchored off a cove that probably contains a portal. It appears to be an Orium powered waterskiing catamaran with a classic sailing ship mounted on top. The boat is clearly not naturally buoyant, so I would assume its apparent unwillingness to obey the laws of physics either means this ship is elevated through chromatic magic, or moves with exceptional and alarming alacrity.

Another curious thing about this ship is it seems to be modelled on a 17th century cargo fluyt, much like the famous Mayflower (the header image for this article is a cartoon image of that ship). Since the Mayflower sailed the Atlantic in the seventeenth century, landing in Massachusetts, and the eponymous Salem Witch Trials were in the seventeenth century, also in Massachusetts, my feeling is this is not an accident. Or maybe it is, and generic seventeenth century cargo ship is the go-to styling for the achroma universe, I don’t know.

The card itself is a 6 cost heroic location with all shard colours, much like Hex Clunker. However unlike the Clunker it is not a build-around. It’s just a solid card. It carries a brand new card ability format, which I am a big fan of (applause for whoever was responsible for the styling here). You have a choice of 3 options each turn:
For 1Δ you get 1 DIVERT on a character.
For 2Δ you immediately get +5, netting you +3.
For 3Δ you give your characters immunity from attacks for a round.

I like the idea of being able to net 3Δ prior to the resolve step every round, including the round it’s played, giving you more flexibility on your turn, and making this the first naturally +5 card in the game. This is especially good considering you can rune it onto the board for net 2Δ. The DIVERT and immunity to attack are more situational but it’s nice to have the flexibility. At present though, I can’t see this crowding out the three C’s of Salum Planum: Cassius, Cronas, and Clunker.

Next up, a cat and a wry navigator:

Giving Funguar a run for his money on the cuteness scale, Veil Chaser’s Cat is a simple 1Δ +1 with a handy ACTION to give a Character DIVERT for one turn. I think 8 out of 10 Cats will give themselves the DIVERT, meaning if the opponent does cast a Fireball at your big character, it’ll hit the Cat instead. A handly little one round safety net that doesn’t cost you any shards.

Hinkley the Navigator gives Locations DIVERT, which is an interesting benefit, as well as carrying DIVERT himself. With him you can partially protect your locations against Location specific abilities (like Hostile Takeover or Breath of Ice), or use Locations as fodder for non-specific abilities (like Cutting Cocoons or Achrom Converter). A solid piece of protection for your canvas.

And finally:

Kelby Knoter, First Mate is a rare, and an extremely good one at that. So good in fact, that Charles aka Viridian named the image file of it that he posted to discord, “best rare”. It’s also the first card with a non-gender specific pronoun in the lore (that I’ve noticed), even if the “witch” character type is typically (but not exclusively) gendered.

While you can only use it once per turn (as per the rules on DIVERT), you can DIVERT any ability to Kelby and their PROTECTION will make it have no effect. This makes Kelby one of the best protectors on the game for your characters, though it must be said it does not protect you from attacks, which is where The Veil Chaser itself could come in handy.

Navigator’s Compass is a 2Δ 2 strength common object with 1 prevent, and gifts its carrier DIVERT. This seems like a strange card. You kind of want your character with DIVERT to either have PROTECTION (thanks Kelby) or be disposable. Spending 2 more shards and a card to attach this to a character just to make them the disposable target of opponents’ abilities seems expensive, so I can’t see this seeing much competitive play, but it’s a fun addition to the DIVERT corpus.

That’s all for now. Next spoiler reviews coming soon.

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