With four players, if everyone plays the clock chimes for midnight and a new mythos card is drawn. That clock on that picture turns with each investigator. A monster appear, a doom token is added, the clock moves faster or slower or something like that. The mythos card in Elder Sign are very straightforward. This is a cool mechanic because I can be closing encounters because they are the easiest and leave the dificult ones who have the Elder Signs.

Each time I fail to complete one row I lose one gree die until I have none and fail the encounter which makes me do the Fail condition. So as you imagine cards with three rows can be very difficult. So If in the first row I have one clue and one manuscript and the second has 3 clues - I can do it in any order but if I lock the first row I lose those two dice there. Even if we have the amout necessary to clean two rows that is not possible (there is a character who can do it but the rest they do not). We have to roll the dice each time and resolve one row on the encounter card. The green dice have 6 sides: 1 Clue 2 Clues 3 Clues 1 Manuscript 1 Skull 1 Eldritch Sign. These two dice only enter play when we play a common or rare card. And there is also a red and a yellow die. If a monster is loose on the museum he will get to this card on the first row and if that was not enough that green locker locks one green die until we resolve this card. But this card has another characteristic. Again each one has a failing and winning condition. If we go to the second drawing there is one row with a single skull and then another row with two skulls. But if we suceceed we get two elder signs tokens.

If we fail we (bottom left) there is a penalty - in this case we lose a stamina ((the brain) and we get a doom token. In the first card we have to roll two eldritch plus sacrifice some sanity or the second row we have to roll 2 skulls plus sacrifice some stamina. Per example look at the card on the right side.

Each card also have a winning or losing condition. So, usually there are 6 of these cards laying around and we can do it at any order. The last expansion the action is set on Antartica. With Gates of Arkham the place takes place outside the Museum in the city of Arkham. In elder sign we are inside a museum and almost each card relates to it. At much there is a sentence for each one. Each card has some design in it but the fluff again is almost non-existent. Then we have the encounter cards where the action occurs.

Elder sign vs arkham horror