Charlie Kane is on the Case

This is a proactive generalist Book and Fist Kane build initially for Scarlet Keys, designed to proactively chase down clues as quickly as possible while dealing with your own monsters. Since Charlie's action quality is determined by the amount of allies exhausted, I picked Guardian and Survivor to capitalize on ally up and down-time effectively and push for progress instead of spending too much time on setup. This version has no unique ally interactions or competing slots, an advantage of being able to pick from a wide breadth of excellent allies to play.

For immediate setup, Charlie uses Motivational Speech and Ever Vigilant to get an early coterie different allies, including Madame Labrancheto quickly stock back up, Leo De Luca to add versatility and Art Student to add some immediate clues in the process. Even with the 5/5 statline granted by In the Thick of It, Charlie has a phenomenal amount of soak, to the point where I eventually cut Peter Sylvestre and ambitions of Hyde.

On the clue side, Art Students drop into play before being pulled back up for Calling in Favors or used for their 2 book add. Taking 1 book investigates against low shroud locations with Take Heart and "Look what I found!" lets the user fail actions before massively succeeding them, compressing actions even further with Live and Learn. Once you are done with your shenanigans, book bonuses from investigative party Labranche, Luxley and Luca allow for a great single investigate on your third (or fourth) action, banking some icons back for Luxley or Labranche's activated ability if you have the skill to spare. Keeping this balance of consumable skills and events and expensive assets means Charlie and coterie are rarely without productive things to accomplish.

Live and Learn can also be used on the combat side, sweeping failures with .18 Derringer into no-bullet shots while Grete, Guard Dog and Luxley assist on the damage and stat side. Venturer restocks Derringer's reliable 2 shot arsenal, giving you a +2 power gun with no penalty for failure and a sizeable reload.

Right in the middle is Summoned Hound, ideally played off Calling In Favors or Chance Encounter to avoid placing the weakness into your deck. A fast action, 5 skill investigate (before adding icons is incredible, and combined with Bonnie Walsh and Inspiring Presence allows for a potentially wild amount of clue scooping or monster fighting. Adding on Leo this gives Charlie a pretty wide spread of available actions to fight off a ghoul, scrape a few clues, and stay ahead of the doom track.

Upgrades: Eventually, Charlie will probably swing one way or the other to fill your teams needs. Depending on the direction you need to fill, Sharp Vision or Brute Force take advantage of Charlies high skill ceilings and can replace Inspiring Presence or whatever card isn't really fitting your build.

A good percentage of these cards are better when they upgrade to higher versions of themselves. A Chance Encounter gets the first upgrade to easily place cards discarded by Short Supply, particularly adding third and fourth Hound access free of weakness. Between that and Calling in Favors, you have an easy way to search 2/3rds of your deck for unique allies and place them into play if you don't draw the ones you are pulling for. Miss Doyle is also simply a Charlie staple at 1 XP and should be amongst your first upgrades for her extra ally slot and easy ? access. You can even pull for a Rod of Animalism to accompany her and your Guard Dog's, though there are precious few creatures to spare (Summoned Hound and The Black Cat both don't count, and both Mysterious Raven and Sled Dogs were first to the cut). Charisma is potentially optional but never a bad call

Beat Cop replaces or augments Guard Dog as ping damage (Beat Cop/Bandages/Venturer is an incredible concealed token ping engine), adding extra fist to Charlie's base, and Grete Wagner and Michael Leigh together get the numbers up respectably while adding damage. If you are deep into the combat side, Vicious Blow is always an excellent addition. Bandages work here with Grete, Beat, and Guard Dog and can be refilled by Venturer, so will probably stay the whole way.

Later on, Trigger Man combined with .18 Derringer is the focused combo here for a Charlie who wants to stay in the fray. At a base 7 attack, failure is not terribly likely, and buffs further attempts to shoot the gun normally while actually adding ammo onto it. Of course, you have to get both, so definitely do this after your upgraded Chance Encounters have made it easy to find the ally if you draw the gun.

Of course, once your base cards are upgraded, you can always just go where the wind takes you! There's no shortage of interesting and unique allies to play, and Charlie can adapt pretty well to most of them.

Charlie is inherently an investigator who adapts best to being a little on both sides of the fence. He won't be great at fighting high, high health monsters in the same way a dedicated Guardian would, and while he has a wild amount of tricks to leverage, clues are likely not going to sweep as fast as a dedicated Seeker. However, as a sum total character on soak, investigations and applied violence, this version of Charlie should be exceptionally action efficient at problem solving and getting you through acts rapidly without creating new burdens for your other allies. As a solo or a fill party member, this particular Kane shines strong.