Fantasy Flight Games has announced the early 2013 release of Call of the Wild, a new expansion for FFG’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired board game Mansions of Madness.  Call of the Wild is not a stand alone game, it requires Mansions of Madness, but it does provide all sorts of new options for the game including five new scenarios and eleven double-sided board tiles that take the Lovecraftian horror of Mansions of Madness into the remote hills, the deep woods, and the steep-sided valleys where lurks a hidden race of monstrous beings.

 

The Call of the Wild Expansion empowers The Keeper with a host of new monsters that will provide plenty of challenges for the Investigators as they comb the great outdoors for clues.  The Keeper can also now construct his own hand of "Keeper Action Cards" that will allow him or her to create a terrifying and difficult experience for opponents.  The Keeper’s hand in these scenarios is kept in secret so opponents won’t know the tricks that may be in store for them.  However, even though the Keeper now has more tools to thwart the investigators, he or she will also have new challenges such as the task of obtaining various grotesque items of arcane power, which can be used by the Keeper to solve a special ritual puzzle in some of the scenarios.

 

Call of the Wild also includes new "Ally" characters, each of which comes with his or her own deck of cards.  Allies work neither as investigators or monsters, but they can participate in combat, have conversations with investigators (providing valuable intelligence or misleading rumors), and complete special tasks for rewards.

 

In Call of the Wild players must marshal their allies, attempt to determine what cards the Keeper has, while either foiling the rituals of others (or completing their own) and dealing with exotic new monsters as they explore the frightening and often treacherous terrain.