Introduction and Themes
This guide is a largely spoiler-free guide that talks about the general mechanics of The Ghosts of Onigawa fan-made campaign made by Myriad. If you're interested in learning what the campaign's unique mechanics are, and hearing suggestions for investigators and cards that are particularly well suited to the campaign, read on!
In The Ghosts of Onigawa, the investigators head to japan to meet up with a friend of theirs - only to find themselves searching through a haunted village, castle, and more in search of a missing girl.
General Mechanics
Blesses and Curses
While it only uses them lightly, the campaign does use blesses and curses - some symbol chaos tokens and enemies will put curses into the chaos bag, while some locations and other effects will put in blesses. With the tokens already being in play, you may as well lean in more to them.
Chasing Enemies
Expect enemies to spawn away from you and hunt onto you often - sometimes it will be smaller enemies, but there's enough big story enemies who do it to be worth considering ways to defend yourself against this specific thing.
Deck Milling
Some encounter cards will cause you to discard from your deck, drawing any weaknesses. This is a pretty soft effect that you likely won't feel at all - but if you pack recursion, it might even be helpful. Likewise, you might want to avoid having a single big XP card (like some rogue exceptionals) unless you have a way to draw it quickly.
Haunted Locations
The Haunted keyword from The Circle Undone makes a return here, punishing you for failing to pass investigation tests. Making sure your base investigation bonus is high is important if you don't want to constantly trigger these effects.
Lots of Elite Enemies
There's a lot of elite enemies in this campaign - including some scenarios that can have multiple, (with per-investigator scaling health!) in the encounter deck. Be prepared to fight, and be prepared to go in for longer fights - making sure you can quickly recharge any limited uses on your weapons and evade enemies you can't take down in one turn will be a lifesaver.
Victory in the Encounter Deck
There's a lot of victory points in the encounter deck - and not just from said elite enemies. Ways to dig through the encounter deck and choose which cards you draw can help net you some extra XP.
The Ghosts of Onigawa Investigator Expansion
The Ghosts of Onigawa also comes with its own investigator expansion. There's lots of fun cards to play with - rather than summarize them here, go check out the player card gallery!
Deckbuilding Advice
The suggestions below aren't by any means required, or even characters I've necessarily played the campaign through. Rather, these are just observations of characters who might be particularly well suited to the campaign, including things that might not be top tier, but have a very strong synergy with the campaign mechanics.
Suggested Investigators
The Ghosts of Onigawa Investigator Expansion Investigators: The Ghosts of Onigawa comes with its own player card expansion, and all of the investigators are worth giving a try. The Guardian of the set, Yuki Yagami, also has special story beats in the campaign.
Leo Anderson: Leo's rogue weapons and guardian allies allow him a lot of combat durability - letting him take on the waves of difficult enemies you might be up again.
Sister Mary: You'll want to get some of the high end bless weapons quickly, but as a bless focused character she'll have fun playing with many of the new bless-focused cards in the investigator expansion and appreciate when blesses show up in the campaign.
Minh Thi Phan: While she's not as high in intellect, Minh can play with recursion with scavenging, benefitting from the mill effects in the campaign.
Norman Withers: Norman's five intellect lets him push through Haunted locations, and his access to mystic spells gives him an ability to help if too many tough enemies show up at once.
Finn Edwards: Finn's strong flexibility can be a big help here, letting him transition from getting clues to beating enemies easily. The investigator expansion also provides a ton of good weapons and cards for him, letting him use his agility for fighting and fitting into a Dirty Fighting plan well.
Tony Morgan: Tony's extra actions will let him handle the toughest enemies on his own, and be a godsend if multiple come out at once. He's also fine playing around curses by getting a covenant is needed.
Dexter Drake: If you want someone to play with curses, there are few better than Dexter -
Kohaku Narukami: There's good new bless cards that Kohaku appreciates in the investigator expansion, and the campaign elements that add curses are just pure bonus to him.
Darrell Simmons: One way to deal with Haunted effects is just drop the shroud of locations to 0. There's also cards of interest to help with both difficulty zero and clue drop strategies in the investigator expansion.
Silas Marsh: Silas can evade and fight the big enemies, and doesn't have to worry about the powerful effects of the one worst negative token by overcommitting skills and pulling them back when not needed. He's also a decent user of Bless tokens, if your party is going that route.
Notable Player Cards
On the Hunt: There's a lot of enemies in the encounter deck that are worthwhile to pull out early - both for victory point reasons, and to keep them from spawning away from you.
Survival Knife: You'll need another weapon, but defeating a hunting enemy as they move onto you is one of the easiest ways to handle them - and you won't even need Dodge!
Prismatic Spectacles: A campaign that hands out curse tokens occasionally is a good place to give these a spin - especially as their bonus can help get you past Haunted in the first place.
Join the Caravan: It requires a specific build, and it's not going to be useful in every scenario, but there are quite a few with split paths or that need you to be somewhere else quickly that it can be a lifesaver.
Borrowed Time: It's XP intensive, but there's a couple times it makes sense for a fighter to bank actions to later - as progress might be heavily clue gated, or the biggest enemies show up later all at once and reward a sudden burst of activity.
Scout Ahead: If you're able to seperate from your party, especially if it's a larger one, Scout Ahead can be useful to help explore some of the branching maps after cleaning out a side location.
The Chthonian Stone: There's often a single, nasty -4 symbol token with a bad effect on it in every chaos bag. Just removing it makes the group a lot after, no longer having to worry about that effect.
Blur: When you need to evade an enemy, you'll often have to run to get away, or be busy blasting someone else at the same time. The extra actions from Blur can be a lifesaver in some of Onigawa's hairier moments.
Bangle of Jinxes: There's lots of minor, unavoidable attacks from enemies - and Bangle of Jinxes is one of the easiest ways to profit off of that directly.
Lucky!: Sure, it's a staple. But some of the worst token failure effects and Haunted effects can be real nasty, so being able to just ignore that they exist will be especially useful here.
More on The Ghosts of Onigawa:
The Ghosts of Onigawa: Spoiler-Light Review
The Ghosts of Onigawa: Advice and Overview