Does anyone know if you need a clue to play this card/get the healing from this card? My interpretation is that because those effects are in separate sentences they are separate effects. Especially because the card does not say you need to place a clue in order to heal.

In an old Fantasy Flight Games article on game design, the designer being interviewed mentioned that they tended to design cards to fit into one of two categories: "hits," small effects that are cheap or otherwise easy to trigger (for example, Scroll of Secrets), and "haymakers," large, expensive, often flashy effects (for example, Will to Survive). Torturous Chords is firmly in the "hit" camp, and helps show off how powerful a consistent "hit" effect can be.

First off, the way this synergizes with the for A Phantom of Truth shows how effective "hits" can be when paired together. Losing 1 resource per point you fail the test by? A bit painful, but nothing too horrid. Effectively increasing the cost of the next 1-5 cards you play by 1? Again, a bit troublesome, but manageable. Combine them, though, and suddenly your economy just got a lot more complicated; you need more resources to pay for cards, but you also just got hit by a pseudo-Paranoia. While on paper this might sound harsh, in reality it comes up quite infrequently, and those times it does it feels less like "The encounter deck is a sentient being, driven by hatred and malevolence" and more "Well played, encounter deck. Let me see how I can recover from this..."

Something that's a bit more common, and a fair bit harsher, is the fact that there's no "Limit 1 per investigator" on Torturous Chords; it's possible to get stuck with 2, even potentially 3 of them, and increasing the cost of the cards in your deck by 2 (or 3, poor Wini) has a much more noticeable effect on your economy than just increasing them by 1. Torturous Chords is still just a "hit," but by combining itself with other "hits" it can punch far above its weight. If A Phantom of Truth included Chilling Cold, or Filth and Decay, its power would go still higher, working in conjunction with those sets' asset destruction to further shred your economy.

Chords also shows the power of "hits" that are delivered consistently; it is possible to avoid it by passing a test, but at a difficulty of 5, even a might have to deal with 1 or 2 resources on this, and once those resources get on it, the only way to get them off is to eat the higher card costs. Even more than Swift Byakhee, this card will pursue you through the scenario, constantly threatening you with its "hit."

However, Chords also shows the weakness of "hits;" on their own, they lack the power to knock the opponent out of the game. It is very possible to work around Chords, even if you pull on the test; simply taking the higher cost on the chin, taking more resource actions, relying more on skills then assets or events, all of them are perfectly valid ways to deal with it. And, even if you do have to deal with it like that, you can take comfort in knowing that you don't have to deal with one of the encounter deck's "haymakers;" having to spend 5 resources for a turn without Spires of Carcosa or Screeching Byakhee sounds like a fair deal to me!

I think this card really shines in 3-4 players where there are a ton of clues on one location. Also I like this to support a Survivor who is trying to use Old Keyring, Flashlight, and/or Gumption to get 5 shroud locations down to 0 for extra clues via Shed a Light or Old Keyring 3. It's not absolutely necessary but when it hits it feels great!

Wini's flashlight beam shakily passed over the walls, its pale light creeping over the bones. The grim labyrinth extended as far as her eyes could see, nothing but stone and bone and death filling her gaze.

And then her beam fell on one particular skull, and glowing eyes within it stared back.

Wini bit back a scream, then frowned. "Wait a second," she muttered, staring intently at the glaring red orbs. "This isn't right."

What isn't? sibilant voices hissed in her mind. You make yourself the foe of one who can rewrite the stars; why are you surprised that the dead rise at his command?

"What?" Wini blinked. "Wait, you think that's what I'm confused about? No, the ghosts and all make sense, it's you that's the problem."

What problem do I pose? the voices hissed back. Is it so strange that the dead who walk should also speak?

"No," Wini shook her head. "What's strange is that you don't synergize with the rest of the scenario. Like, at all."

The voices paused. Then echoed her confusion. What?

"I mean, The Pit Below works with the whole "map" thing the scenario's got going on," Wini continued, "and The Shadow Behind You... look, I don't care how little it synergizes with the rest, ": You look behind you" will never not be funny. But you? You're Rotting Remains with extra steps, and there's nothing else in the entire scenario that touches those steps. If the designers wanted a horror dealing treachery, why didn't they just replace you with Striking Fear? It would fit really well with the whole Catacombs theme."

The glaring red eyes of the unquiet dead blinked slowly. You say that we do not fit, their voices slowly replied, and that you would rather see us replaced with Rotting Remains, Dissonant Voices, and Frozen in Fear?

Wini easily nodded, casually taking a swig from her not-water bottle.

And you call us mad, the voices grumbled.

Very interesting design, evoking a similar feeling to that of The Last King. Corpse Dweller basically turns Humanoid enemies (like Ghoul Minion) into time bombs, requiring you to clear them from the board before they explode into this 3/5/4 2D/1H behemoth. However, doing so will require you to use actions and potentially other resources, such as charges, ammo, or skills, things which you will be sorely needing later on, and Corpse Dweller, unlike the guests in The Last King, isn't guaranteed to detonate. All of this forces you to consider whether you should kill that Ghoul Minion now and (assuming your source of 2 damage isn't renewable) definitely have fewer resources available to deal with the other big bosses or simply evade it and potentially have to spend more resources later to deal with the Dweller.

Alternatively, Player 1 could draw Catacombs Docent, promptly followed by Player 2 drawing the Corpse Dweller, at which point there aren't any mind games to play, but even then, at arguably its lowest point, Corpse Dweller still isn't a bad card; yes, it is a 3/5/4 2D/1H enemy, but that was all that was revealed that turn, giving you more breathing room to take care of it.

All in all, very well-done card. Add in the Return To's fix of making it unable to discard The Man in the Pallid Mask, and it's almost perfect. 10/10, would blow up Tommy Malloy again.