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The rest of the Powers That Be and some final thoughts.
As before, we're listing out the remaining 5(+1) GOOs in rough release order.
Tsathoggua-
The Big Toad is one of the most prominent of the Old Ones that isn't an HP Lovecraft creation. It was originally created by Clark Ashton Smith for his Hyperborean Cycle, which is a series of short stories he wrote about the goings-on in Hyperborea; roughly modern-day Greenland. As the two writers were fond of borrowing things from each other, the Sleeper of N'Kai became an accepted part of Lovecraftian lore. (Incidentally, Robert E. Howard, of Conan fame, also used the term "Hyperborea" for a far northern kingdom that once enslaved his title character. The term originates with the ancient Greeks, specifically Herodotus, and meant "beyond Borea" (i.e. beyond the North wind.)) The specific story in which Tsathoggua first appears is "The Tale of Satampra Seiros", written in 1929, but published in Weird Tales in 1931. The "sleeper" title is what has accompanied its identity down through the years. It's the name of the faction in Cthulhu Wars and is the central theme of its abilities in DMD in the form of Fatigue. When Investigators take Fatigue, it means that their Health or Stress totals are one less until they decide to Rest and recover one less in order to dump the Fatigue. This sounds onerous and it can be, but since you can choose which Investigator takes it, rather than handing it to whoever's turn it is when the Toad advances (like Hastur's Yellow Signs), it's a little less of a penalty (Teamwork!) However, it does kind of accelerate when Tsathoggua hits the board, as it then converts into multiple At The End Of Each Turn situations, that add Fatigue, wounds, Stress, and Sanity loss. So, y'know, in contrast to the GOO, act fast, yo.
Accompanying the Sleeper are Amorphous Scions. Now, similarly to Black Goat, I'm a little confused as to why the Scions couldn't simply have been Formless Spawn, which is what they've been since they were created by Smith as servants of Tsathoggua in that same Weird Tales story. It's just a renaming of the same thing, as the Scions as depicted are the same black ooze that Spawn have always been described as (I wrote a story largely about Formless Spawn once.) They're 3 wound monsters with 1 black and 2 green dice, but they also take 1 less wound from Investigators with Fatigue... which makes them neither threat nor thrilling, for the most part, so that may be our answer for the renaming. Only two Mythos cards summon them (Evil Inertia! Amorphous Scion!) and the rest are largely oriented around Fatigue tokens, moving the Toad or summoning Cultists to your space, although one is kind of exotic (Tireless Devotees!) which moves each Cultist toward you and then you take Stress for each enemy in your space, which could be a bit of an issue at a key moment. Tsathoggua does start out a little more aggressive, dice-wise, with 1 black and 2 green, adding 1 of each in the next two phases, but most of its presence is bereft of genuinely sharp edges (perhaps appropo for The Sleeper) and the win rates reflect that, getting as high as 70% in 2-player and only falling to 50% at 5-player, albeit with only 14 games recorded. Borderline soporific.
Azathoth-
In contrast, Azathoth is a central entity in the Mythos and has, uh, tendrils that flow throughout both Lovecraft's tales and those who have continued in his path. Lovecraft first mentions its name in a note to himself about how horrible the name was in 1919, but it's referenced in a number of other stories ("The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Thing on fhe Doorstep", "The Dreams in the Witch-house", etc.), usually by one of its many titles (the Daemon Sultan, the Blind Idiot God, the Lord of all Things, the Nuclear Chaos, Him in the Gulf, etc.) Like Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth is clearly a foundation stone upon which a lot of the collective mythos rests. This is the primary character that drives many of the perceptions that the GOOs don't even consider the travails of mere mortals, since they're so powerful and ancient that everything we are and do is beneath their notice. Where the Toad made everyone tired, the Sultan makes everything Cosmic (man.) Anything changed into a Cosmic entity has an additional green die when attacking and +1 health and the Cosmic condition comes out pretty readily among his cards. At later stages, Cosmic entities (and Azathoth) start counting Elder Signs on the dice as Madness and players start losing Sanity just for being within 2 spaces of an entity. Oh, and he advances on 2 Summoning symbols, rather than 3. So he makes a fair number of things more difficult, even though he starts out at a pretty basic level (3 black dice), adding 2 green and another 2 green by the end.
Accompanying him are Dancers of Azathoth. Again with the naming thing! The creatures that accompanied the Nuclear Chaos have long been known as Flautists (i.e. flute players) albeit sometimes Servitors of the Elder Gods (but still flautists!) Whether they were there as his servants or placed there by others to control the Blind Idiot (but all-powerful) God is an open question that has been reinterpreted over the years by Lovecraft and others. But that doesn't mean they needed to be called "Dancers", not least because their figures don't show them dancing but do show them playing an instrument(!) I don't get it. The Flautists were first mentioned in HPL's "The Rats in the Walls" in Weird Tales in 1924. Meanwhile, the "Dancers" are only 2 health and only have 2 black dice, but when they're destroyed, they add the Cosmic status to the nearest monster or Cultist who has the most health left. So, you can't escape the threat, even if the Flautists can usually be easily dealt with. And the Mythos deck is no better, since two of them (Cosmic Upheaval!) make you draw another card and resolve that one, as well, meaning that Azathoth will often show up long before you've dealt with the ritual (meaning he can't be damaged until it's done.) On top of that, other cards (Otherworldly Encounter! Nuclear Chaos!) place Cosmic tokens on gates, ensuring that whatever comes through that gate will gain the bonuses of being Cosmic. We've usually found Azathoth to be a threat worth the horrible name and others have, too, since at 2 players he's a reasonable 68% win rate, but it drops sharply after that, resting at 46% with 4 Investigators.
Ithaqua-
Ithaqua, OTOH, is clearly lumped in with the easier GOOs in the game. Despite its fearsome reputation in both stories and games like Cthulhu Wars, in DMD the Wind-Walker seems almost as emaciated, power-wise, as his really excellent mini is. First appearing in August Derleth's "The Thing That Walked on the Wind" (published in Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror in 1933), which itself may have been inspired by Algernon Blackwood's 1910 tale, "The Wendigo", Ithaqua has always been a bit external to the collection of beings known as as the Great Old Ones/Outer Gods. He definitely fits the role of a "Great Old One" from Algonquin legends, but seems more "nature-oriented" than others that fill that role in the Lovecraft mythos. This red/white/gray-headed stepchild status seems reflected in his mechanisms in the game, which are almost wholly centered around the Blizzard token. If you're in the space with the Blizzard token, bad things can happen to you. If not... not so much? It can have significant situational impact, since you can't reroll with Stress in the same space and you have to take two Stress when you enter its space or it enters yours (which you can't use for the primary purpose of Stress, so...) But it ramps up sharply if you can't Rest, since when Ithaqua first arrives to the board, you start taking wounds for each Stress you can't take, monsters and Cultists gain a green die when they're near it, and it starts gathering everyone into the parade as it moves toward you. But, again, just the token.
Helping out considerably are the Shantak, 5(!) wound monsters that move the Blizzard token toward you if they inflict any wounds with their 2 black and 1 green dice. The Shantak first appeared in "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", but Derleth later abducted them as servants of the Wendigo, so here they are. It's tough to get rid of them and they will often bring the Blizzard token closer, but that's still not a huge threat. It's possible to say that Ithaqua as a whole is largely map-dependent. If you have enough space to stay away from the token, then you're golden. If not, then you might have issues. That's reflected not only in Ithaqua's direct power, as he starts with 2 green and gains 3 black and another green in the next phase, which is the biggest surge among any of the GOOs (he gains his last green in phase III.) He also has more immediate impact in his final phase, since every Investigator simply takes 2 Stress and loses 2 Sanity and he moves the Blizzard token to his space at the yellow gate by moving it through each space on the way there. Unfortunately, only 4 of his Mythos cards move the token, either, although two of them at least have an effect if you're one space away: Frost and Horror! makes you lose 1 Stress and 1 Sanity, while the triple Summoning symbol also simply occurs in those circumstances,with no chance to avoid it. But we've still escaped any real problems in dealing with him, as have others, since his 2-player win rate is a comfortable 65%, while 3-player is 74%. Higher counts are a bit more restrained (11/18 and 3/7, respectively) but then we start talking about sample sizes.
Nyarlathotep-
Like his "father", Azathoth, Nyarlathotep is a central figure in the Cthulhu Mythos, appearing in more forms and guises that any other character in Lovecraft's writing and well beyond. (Likewise, I wrote a story about him, too.) He first appeared in the prose poem "Nyarlathotep", published in The United Amateur in 1920. Unique among the GOOs in the game, he has two forms: a human form that starts on the map and the giant monster form that starts on the summoning track like usual (and takes up more table (and storage!) space than any other GOO.) (He also has two different human forms (one was part of a KS extra) with slightly different abilities. CMON!) Also unique among his depictions in the Mythos, in DMD he's portrayed as a fire god of some kind as most of the abilities of all forms are centered around fire and Fire tokens. It's even stranger given that in a couple tales there are some references to Nyarlathotep being an enemy of Cthugha, The Living Flame. Yeah, I dunno. Neither of the human forms can be attacked or damaged, but both wield 3 black dice. The original human form makes Investigators catch Fire for each Elder Sign rolled (including the monster form) and then moves to the farthest gate, while the extra one just allows you to move him away from you as many spaces as you gain successes, but also moves more Moon-beasts toward you and drops Fire tokens in his space when the big guy advances. Meanwhile, the monster forms are all the same and love Cultists, since they pick up the "catch Fire for each Elder Sign" ability, too, in phase II and the Dark Pharaoh also heals for each Cultist in its space at the end of each turn in phase III. You eventually take Sanity loss for all the fire around you, too. The big form only ever achieves 3 black and 3 green dice, though.
Oh, yeah. The Moon-beasts. These are among the best of the GOO-tied monsters, since there's 3 of them in the pool, they all have 4 wounds, 2 black and 1 green dice, and all Elder Signs they roll count as Madness results, too. Like so many other things, they first appeared in "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", too. We've had more trouble dealing with these things in our encounters with the Crawling Chaos than almost anything else, as their mix of durability and threat makes them something to pay attention to, especially with the extra human form. And it's not just because of the two cards that specifically move Moon-beasts (Moon-beast! and Lunar Menace!) It's also because every card but one in his Mythos deck moves Nyarlathotep closer to you and frequently have either all monsters in his space (Spreading Madness!) or all Cultists in his space (Blind Followers!) following him. That one exception? Dragged Into Darkness!, which gives you 2 Fire if you're in his space but otherwise makes all Investigators move 1 space closer to him. Hope you're not playing a mission that requires you to be in specific locations... It sounds like a lot to handle, but the win rates are still pretty positive, ranging from 76% at 2-player to a much more iffy 56% at 3-player (again, sample size may play a part there.) In my personal experience, we've lost 1 and won 1 against him but I have to say that, given the unique circumstances of his two forms, those two games were two of the most challenging and most fun of any of the GOOs we've played against.
Nug and Yeb-
This is even more unusual a situation than Nyarlathotep. Nug and Yeb are a dual GOO, both in the literature and in the game. They both appeared in that story that Lovecraft re-wrote alongside Adolphe de Castro, "The Last Test" in 1928 in Weird Tales. But they occupy a prominent place in the Mythos, according to HPL's letters, since they were both formed from the mating of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath (this is why Shub is usually depicted as female...) and Nug is supposed to be the parent of Cthulhu while Yeb is the parent of Tsathoggua. Meanwhile, HPL used to write letters talking about how he enjoyed having them hang around the house because they were so lovable... These two are the most complex of the GOOs currently available because, y'know, there's two of them; one that occupies the Summoning track and one that occupies the Influence track on their own Influence board. Both of them do things when they advance on their respective tracks and when the ritual is disrupted and/or the one you're directly facing is summoned, both of them arrive on the board and you only defeat a stage if you defeat both of them (i.e. deal out 24 wounds instead of the usual 12.) As noted in the Investigators analysis, that's well within the reach of a lot of late-stage characters, but vastly easier at higher player counts, as the win rates will show. So, bring a crowd if you face these two. They are, after all.
The Story board is an additional track that is activated by the Mythos cards. They still have Summoning symbols that advance the one on the Summoning track, but there are also cards that move the one on the Influence track which activates some abilities and other cards that activate other triggered abilities on that track based on where the GOO is sitting. So, it's a bit more to keep (ahem) track of. But they also don't do anything extra when they advance on the Summoning track except summon a couple Cultists, so that's simple. One deviation is their final phase, in which each Investigator has to lose 1 level of a skill, which can occasionally be more devastating than almost any loss of Sanity or health that doesn't make you lose the game, but there's often at least one skill that you can cut back on that won't cripple your efforts. If you're facing Nug, most of the effects on the Influence track are going to be about Sanity loss or gates moving closer to you. This includes activating your insanity, sometimes instantly and sometimes as your own option to keep monsters from moving toward you. Yeb, OTOH, is about more physical things, involving Stress loss, placing Fire tokens, and losing Items or Companions. So they both have their own flavor in terms of what "type" of GOO challenge you're facing. They're also mirror images of each other in terms of dice, with Nug eventually accumulating 3 black and 2 green, while Yeb gets 2 black and 3 green. The math-inclined will note that that's 1 die less than any other GOO in the game, so despite facing two of them, you'll at least be able to weather their hits in the late game a little better. Their Mythos cards are similarly plain in that most of them are about moving Cultists, but it's the Influence track that really drives interest on them. That ties into one card (The Twin Blasphemies!) wherein you can move the one on the Summoning track like there were 3 Summoning symbols or move the one on the Influence track a number of spaces equal to the Sanity thresholds you've reached. Results numbers against them are very hard to read. Nug's Sanity loss seems to impact 2-player games a lot (41%) but not so much at 3-player (66%), while Yeb's physical impact is greater at 3-player (56%) than 4-player (63%.), although both of those results seem to make sense to me in terms of gameplay.
So that's a ridiculous number of thousands of words about Cthulhu: Death May Die. As you can probably tell, Lovecraft fan that I am, I'm a similarly huge fan of this game, despite my general indifference toward co-ops. It may be that latter perspective that makes me feel like I'm still a bit more swayed by The Others because of the cyberpunk themes present. But I can fully understand the greater attraction of DMD, not only for my own affection for the Mythos, but also because the other game's setup of 1-vs-many is often the least-liked scenario in modern boardgaming, since one person often is seen as "spoiling" the fun of everyone else, whereas here the only thing that might spoil your fun are some gigantic demon gods from beyond space and time. There is room to argue that the Cthulhu theme is a little played out (although sales in most media would indicate otherwise) and there's also room to argue that there may be less game here than first visible and that the mechanisms can occasionally become a little rote (the aforementioned issue of Investigators with level 3 skills being able to absolutely lay waste to everything, including the big climax monster.) But I think the episodes solve a lot of those problems, since you'll at least be playing a different story in each one, even if the mechanisms might end up flowing together a bit. I'm really looking forward to now-Asmodee releasing the next expansion (New basic skills! Yig! Ghatanathoa! Atlach-Nacha!), whenever they can get that moving. Meanwhile, there's still a ton to explore (and re-explore) in what's already on the shelf.
