FissureVerse – Five cards get art, goal changes

Thanks to Esherymack, Victor Hugo Harmatiuk, and Mahea Rodrigues for the art!

Click to see big scary creatures!

Decomposing is a fairly simple card, so it didn't need to change much; the biggest trick was to find something that properly represented decomposition to something living. I could have gone with something leprous, of course, but the thing on this zombie's head gave me the impression of an experiment or it being applied, rather than happening naturally. I think it's therefore similar to Through the Mud.

Lifters has always been tough to find art for. I needed creatures that suggested brutal deviousness: brutal because they belonged to The Noise, and devious because they possessed some skill to increase the intelligence of other Crusaders, either by teaching, magic, or technology. I think these guys might lead by example. I opted for no flavor text because they seem like the silent type. Their gaze is enough to tell you how much they loathe you. Also, to keep Lifters in line with similar cards, I boosted their Reason stat.

Irregularity has had its water stat upped a tad to bring it in line with similar cards. I liked the carnival theme of the art, and I'm glad it ties to the Red Carnival Location card. I think that might become a bigger theme if the art comes my way to match. Of course, with a bloody red faction, there is but one ultimate reference to a carnival that can be used... perhaps my teenage self likes to wink at me from time to time.

Corruption has a similar theme to Decomposing as far as mechanics goes, so I tried to get something of a similar theme for both flavor text and card art. The difference being Decomposing is like a disease of the body, while Corruption is a disease of the mind.

Click to see, and read extra text.

Somehow I mixed up which artist (if any) disappeared off the face of the earth, and I accidentally replaced card art by Esherymack, who is still very much around. To make up for that mistake, I've gotten new art from Esherymack to use for a different card. Phew!

The only major difference between the old version of Cosmic Disruption and the new is that the special rules had to be more wordy to remove ambiguity, so the flavor text got chopped down.

I've also changed the rules for winning the game. I'd been having some trouble figuring out the most fair way of finding a winner. My first goal was for every player (but one) lose all of their Crusaders. While that's got a neatness to it, ultimately it might make for some exceedingly long games. So I had offered a timed game variant, which had players count up points after a certain period of time. While this also somewhat worked, there is the potential for a player who knows he's in the lead to take as long as possible to make a move, and thereby 'run out the clock'. My counter thought to this was to have what amounts to a shot clock, but really I don't like that idea at all.

So I've combined features of both goals into a unified normal objective. In two player games, one player will eventually lose all their Crusaders, and the other player will be the winner. But in three or four-player games (and I'm considering just saying the game is for three to four players, and leave the two player variant out), once one player has lost all their Crusaders, the remaining players count up points.

Lastly, the careful observer may notice the Base Set Components section of the manual (and in other places) got the number of Frenzies bumped up from 24 to 32. I came up with more Frenzies that are still fairly basic in nature, and compliment the current Frenzies, so I thought I'd include them in the base set, rather than save them for an expansion. Four of them still need names, so I'll introduce them slowly, as I get the art for them.