Awaken Realms truly is not satisfied with just “good enough”. They created a longer backstory for EVERY crewmember. But that was not good enough, so they created a personal QUEST for EVERY crewmember with a reward of a second convert ability (more on that below). But that was not good enough, so they made a book to go with the 90 “Veteran” crewmember cards. But even that was not good enough, even though that was all that they told us about the Personnel Files expansion.
Personally, I was very excited when they were able to move delivery from Wave 2 into Wave 1. Yet even that was not Good Enough for Awaken Realms!
I was totally surprised that in addition to all that, Awaken Realms created new art for EVERY crewmembers Veteran card! And it was not enough to just add a stripe to their jacket or a glove on their hand. I was thrilled when I saw all the cards! Absolutely thrilled! I needed to look at them all, one by one side by side with the original crewmember artwork and admire how thoughtfully they designed the changes to the “look” of the crewmembers!
Join me for a look at just SOME of the crewmember cards, the original side by side with the Veteran card!
Of course you noticed that he now has TWO convert abilities (to two different icons). Plus, the crewmember name at the top now has the black and white reversed. Likewise for the name of their skill (Alertness in this example). And it is fun to see Mark in his new Veteran Suit!
And did you notice the curved bottom of the artwork? Now look at the Crew Boards:
Notice how the curve at the bottom of the crewmember artwork area CONTINUES into the Spent Dice area as the outline of a planet (or moon?) I just love these small (but important) touches that Awaken Realms includes in the game!
And I was interested in his first name as it was unfamiliar to me, so I googled it and found something interesting:
Stjepan Šejić – A Croatian comic writer and artist.
And guess what nationality Stjephan Belic originally was? Yep, Croatian! Bravo Awaken Realms!
OK, just one more:
Thabisa has a new look … plus, as a Veteran she seems to be suspended by cables. Zipline? Hmmm.
Next, let’s look at the Quest portion of the Personnel Files by looking at the back of Mark Poulsen’s new card:
When Mark gets to rank 2, you are allowed to pull out his Veteran card and read the introduction (File 55 in his case) which will give you more background story. Next, in the middle of the back of his Veteran card you see his QUEST, referred to as his Individual Objective. These quests will vary from crewmember to crewmember. Let’s look at the one assigned to Mark:
Each time you use your Crewmember Ability Skill to ignore the result of a Danger die that would make you gain an Injury, progress the track on this card by 1. Reset the track on this card at the end of a Planetary Exploration.
First, let’s clarify! This quest incorrectly refers to Mark’s SKILL as his “Ability”. Page 37 of the rulebook tells us that his ability is up at the top left of the front of his card and allows him to convert a BASIC die result into a compass (Scouting) icon. His SKILL (at the bottom of the card) is ignoring a Danger die! So, to prevent confusion, I “fixed” the typo (above).
Now, let’s explain how to use the “progress track” on his Veteran card, which looks like this:
At first glance, you might think that he needs to “meet” his quest two times (because you see the count start with 2). Actually, he needs to “meet” that quest THREE times, just like a count down of 2, 1, 0. Awaken Realms tries to clarify this by using small “arrowhead” triangles. You see an arrow pointing from the [2] over to the [1]. You also see an “arrowhead” pointing down FROM the [1] to the [Completion] bar. So, Mark starts with a clean slate. The first time he meets his quest you place a marker (acrylic cube) on the [2]. The next time that he meets his quest, follow the arrow to slide that marker over to the [1]. The next time that he meets his quest, follow the arrow down to the COMPLETION bar and follow it’s instructions … Read File 155.
Once a crewmember completes their quest, you replace the original crew card with the Veteran card (and that crewmember now has TWO convert abilities).
NOTE: If your Planetary Exploration ends BEFORE they complete their progress track, you do not get to “save” your progress to the next mission. Nope. You clear it and start over with the next mission that crewmember is on.
Note that quests do not always involve a progression track. Here is the Quest for Samarth Ramprakash:
At the end of any player’s turn, if there are a total of 2 or fewer Lead tokens in the Lead bag, go to Completion.
In his case, you need to monitor how many lead tokens are in the Lead bag and when it gets down to just 2 tokens (or less), you follow the Completion instruction to read File 173.
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