Task-Oriented Gloria Goldberg Loves Taking Horror, I Guess 0

Of the new tasks, 3 are easy to fit into most parties (no place like home, plumb the depths, and Good Money). Annoying to play around, but very doable. On the other end of the spectrum; Prove your worth either requires luck, ways to stop the tentacle, or both (I've seen the tentacle come out 3 pulls in a row, we know it happens). Then you gain the ability to...ignore things that aren't the tentacle. The other 4 require some sort of build. In a 4-player game, you've got to give somebody one of those. Which is why Gloria here is about to develop a painkiller addiction, takes horror-inducing spells, and otherwise makes slightly sub-optimal choices. I am going in with the assumption we want to complete our tasks 100% of the time, because I'm playing blind (except for knowing what tasks there are), and it's the safe assumption.

Playing her is simple: Hope/mulligan for Sign Magick and Scrying early, then control who gets what from the encounter deck without sacrificing too much of your mage ability. Play Delve Too Deep to annoy your teammates. Hope you pull symbols that hurt you, and use painkillers to heal from your 2 physical trauma, in order to take more horror. Ward of Protection anything in the encounter deck threatening to do more than one horror at a time. If you assign some horror to allies, you should be fine. Save a copy of Psychic Sensitivity for your weakness, you'll probably be seeing it a lot.

Versatile lets you add the cards that are directly related to the task after the first scenario, including a copy of Peter. All located conveniently in the side deck. She doesn't have enough card draw to get everything each scenario (especially at 35 cards), so we rely on luck and multiple back-up plans.

Card Choice Discussion: Clairvoyance and Shriveling do horror on a bad (?) pull, so there are more of those than Rite of Seeking and Azure Flame. If we're taking penalties, at least take the ones we need.

Sign Magick lets us have a clue spell, combat spell, and scrying. The upgraded version lets us scry (or whichever) without an action. Plus, what else do mystics need their hands for? Upgrading scrying will remove that benefit (and possibly give horror), but maybe you'll want to blast an enemy then grab clues.

Forbidden Knowledge doesn't take up a slot, gives much-needed economy, and also provides horror. Gloria has made poor life choices, so taking horror is considered a positive.

I took In the Thick of It with 2 physical trauma, because our mystic shouldn't be out there getting hit. And we packed painkillers. It's only 3 xp, you could certainly choose to avoid doing that to poor Gloria if you wanted.

Down the Rabbit Hole instead of Arcane Studies, because the 3 extra xp (1 for Versatile, 2 for replacing Delve Too Deep with Stargazing late game) is worth it for saving 2 mental trauma. Our only healing is Fearless, unless some of our teammates pack some to help us, so we're wanting to avoid mental trauma.

St. Hubert's Key instead of other accessories because it can heal horror, and lowers your maximum sanity (only need to take horror 7+ times per scenario instead of 9+). Eye of Ghatanothoa looks great, but we're here to take medically-inadvisable amounts of horror.

Interestingly, Gloria's ability means Ward of Protection 0 and 2 xp versions are functionally identical. Upgrading it to the 5 xp version still means we can get rid of those enemies we don't feel like dealing with.

Assuming I did the math correctly and also assuming you fully use Forbidden Knowledge (0 cost, gain 4 resources) and Uncage the Soul (0 cost, save 3 resources), the average card cost should be 1.065 resources. Close enough, but you could sub out First Watch for a Stand Together to get it below 1 if you like.