Curse of the Crimson Throne, Scenario 3B: The Emperor of Old Korvosa has a pretty interesting set of powers...
At the start of your turn, display Blood Pig Bout next to a random location. At the end of your move step, if you are at Blood Pig Bout's location, encounter it. Then, if you did not defeat or encounter Blood Pig Bout, put the top card of Blood Pig Bout's location faceup on an emperor pile next to the scenario. If only 1 location has cards, banish Blood Pig Bout.
When you encounter a Squealing Pig, draw it. When at the location Pits, you may display the ally Pig or a Squealing Pig next to the location; when the number of those cards is greater than or equal to the number of locations, banish Blood Pig Bout.
When Blood Pig Bout is banished, add the new location Throne Room and shuffle the villain Pilts Swastel and the non-closing henchman Jabbyr into it, then shuffle the emperor pile and reload it into the Throne Room. All Proxy B's are now the non-closing henchman Thug.
To win, defeat and corner Pilts Swastel.
The short of it is that you need to either close almost all locations or find enough Squealing Pigs to trigger the villain to arrive, then you have to corner him. During this time, you can repeatedly fight the Blood Pig Bout for its highly beneficial "when defeated" power or you can let it eat cards out of the location decks for you (for better or worse).
However, the scenario raises 3 questions/observations from me. I'm quietly confident as to the RAW answer for all three, but I think all are worthy of some kind of FAQ, and all three conflict with my strong opinion as to what the RAI may have been.
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OBSERVATION 1: DEFEATING THE BLOOD PIG BOUT BANISHES IT
Every time you defeat the Blood Pig Bout, as per page 10 of the Core Rulebook, it should be banished. At the start of the next turn, it'll simply be drawn from the vault (or wherever else it happens to be if someone's done some trickery and drawn it, like the Hunter Ukuja) and displayed next to a random location... but the important thing is that as soon as you defeat it even once then 'phase 2' of the scenario should begin because it was banished, right?
Resolve the Encounter. If the encounter is with a boon, and you succeeded at all of the checks required to acquire it, draw it. Otherwise, banish it. In either case, the encounter is over.
If the encounter is with a bane, and you succeeded at all of the checks required to defeat it, it is defeated; if it is not a villain, banish it and the encounter is over.
This means that the whole 'find Squealing Pigs' goal is almost immediately ignored, though. Furthermore, it seems to defeat the purpose of having two very specific ways of banishing the Blood Pig Bout with the scenario power if all you need to do is just move to it and encounter it.
I think the intention of the scenario is clearly that the Blood Pig Bout is not banished when you encounter and defeat it - only if you fulfill the requirements in the scenario powers themselves.
SUGGESTED AMENDMENT: I recommend the first scenario power be rewritten as follows...
At the start of your turn, display Blood Pig Bout next to a random location. At the end of your move step, if you are at Blood Pig Bout's location, summon and encounter it. Then, if you did not defeat or encounter a summoned Blood Pig Bout, put the top card of Blood Pig Bout's location faceup on an emperor pile next to the scenario. If only 1 location has cards, banish Blood Pig Bout.
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OBSERVATION 2: AFTER PHASE 2 OF THE SCENARIO BEGINS, THE BLOOD PIG BOUT WILL BE INSTANTLY RE-DISPLAYED
As mentioned earlier, banishing the Blood Pig Bout doesn't turn "Display Blood Pig Bout next to a random location" into an impossible instruction; you just pull it from the vault (or elsewhere) and display it as needed. Another rules discussion thread all but confirmed that the location of a card doesn't stop such a power from working (which indirectly buffed the already-very-strong Fumbus by a lot).
This means after the villain shows up and the Throne Room is built; the Blood Pig Bout comes straight back and continues 'eating' cards from the locations... though the "Emperor Pile" it sends cards to will no longer be referenced for the remainder of the scenario. Worse, if it 'eats' the villain (or even if you defeat the Blood Pig Bout and draw/banish the villain from its power) then you're left with a completely unwinnable scenario. In other words, if the villain is ever the top card of a location and the Blood Pig Bout gets displayed there, you (almost certainly) auto-lose.
Clearly the intent is that the Blood Pig Bout doesn't return once you add in the villain, which also reflects the RPG better (where the villain fight is only after the game itself).
SUGGESTED AMENDMENT: I recommend the first scenario power be rewritten as follows...
At the start of your turn, if Blood Pig Bout is displayed, display it next to a random location. At the end of your move step, if you are at Blood Pig Bout's location, summon and encounter it. Then, if you did not defeat or encounter a summoned Blood Pig Bout, put the top card of Blood Pig Bout's location faceup on an emperor pile next to the scenario. If only 1 location has cards, banish Blood Pig Bout. If the location Blood Pig Bout is displayed next to is closed, display it next to a random location.
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OBSERVATION 3/QUESTION 1: CAN THE BLOOD PIG BOUT BE DISPLAYED NEXT TO THE BASE?
See this thread for pretty much the exact same question/observation. This is one of multiple scenario powers that really reads like "random locations" shouldn't count the Base (among other things, that would cause Supporters to potentially end up in an actual location deck which is probably unintended). Though as the linked thread suggests, I really can't find any RAW saying that random locations never include the Base - unless you greatly extrapolate the definition of "counting locations" to also include "counting them in order to prepare to roll a die to define a random result".
Reluctantly bumping this thread; while Observation 3 has been completely resolved with a FAQ, I believe both Observations 1 and 2 are still valid and this scenario does not work as-intended RAW.
To re-summarize my two relevant observations...
I'd also like to know more about the Squealing Pig.
Presumably, as we're expected to draw it, it's a card.
And as we have the option to display it, it's one we can keep in our hand.
Quinn can reload a card onto his deck for one of his character powers. So far, so good - he could probably use a Squealing Pig for that.
But one of the things that power wants is the card's level. As there doesn't seem to be an actual Squealing Pig card to reference, that's a bit tricky!
The Squealing Pig is Proxy B, level 0 card.
The way it is listed in the scenario is the same way that "Vampire (Ramoska Arkimos)" is listed in scenario 2D - the Vampire is given a proper name, but it doesn't change anything else about the card. In the same way, the Proxy B is given the name "Squealing Pig", but for every other effect, it is simply a Proxy B.
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It's not the same at all. There is a Story Bane card "Vampire", complete with level (2, in that case). Furthermore the Vampire is standing for itself, not being represented by a proxy.
A closer analogy is the Cultists from scenario 2D. They are represented by a proxy, but that doesn't mean they are level 0 - they inherit their level from the card they are proxying for. A cultist is level 1.
The trouble is that in this case there is no card they are standing in for, despite the fact that the rulebook only talks about proxies in that context - they have no inherent properties of their own.
This post by Vic Wertz indicates that proxies not representing a card are simply treated as Proxies.
And this later FAQ entry modifies the part of the rulebook JohnF mentioned, adding that proxies are their own cards and don't need a "proxied" card to function.
So it seems that, as a card, in this scenario, the Proxies are just that, with a level of 0 and no other properties.
As long as this thread was bumped, I maintain that my first 2 observations, made in the initial post about 9 months ago, have not been ruled upon.
There is nothing in the rulebook indicating that you don't banish a displayed card when you defeat it - in fact, there's some barriers in the game that are built on this concept, such as the Forbiddance barrier, which is also from Curse of the Crimson Throne.
If undefeated, display this barrier at your location and move to a random other location. While displayed, at this location:
• At the start of your turn, you may encounter this barrier.
• When you would explore, first move to a random other location.
• When this location is closed, banish this barrier.
The only reason to allow players to encounter it after it's displayed would be if defeating it banished it - so it clearly shows explicit design intent that defeated cards get banished, whether they're displayed or from a location.
As a result, it clearly appears that 'phase 2' of this scenario starts potentially as soon as the first player ends his move step (and encounters the Blood Pig Bout), rendering the clear majority of the scenario rules nullified almost immediately. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping the Blood Pig Bout from being re-displayed immediately in phase 2, causing some rather awkward problems.
A closer analogy is the Cultists from scenario 2D. They are represented by a proxy, but that doesn't mean they are level 0 - they inherit their level from the card they are proxying for. A cultist is level 1.
I know the conversation is more or less resolved already, but the point I was trying to make is that there are two different ways that cards are given a different 'identity'.
If defeated, draw the top card of your location; if it is a bane, banish it.
I think that "draw" is exactly the intent. If the intent had been for the character to attempt to acquire a boon, the wording would have been something like...
If defeated, encounter the top card of your location; if it is a bane, banish it.
By using the "draw" action, this avoids the potential for Trigger effects (had "examine" been used) and BYA effects (had "encounter" been used). The character draws the card without potential for further negative effects, banishing the card if it is a bane. Gaining a "free" boon or avoiding a bane are the reward for winning the Blood Pig Bout.
An interesting thing that seems to go against intent came up when I was playing this.
While the intent is obvious that you play Blood Pig until you have as many pigs as locations or until only one location is left, as soon as the Blood Pig Bout is displayed next to the Rooftops, if a player encounters it at the end of their move step they get to grab a second barrier and banish the Blood Pig Bout (since it is a barrier).
Seems a bit of an abrupt ending to the bout of blood pig.