Mask
Alert
Meta
Diplomacy
Type
Power to Masquerade
Impersonates Other Aliens
Setup: Abduct one ship from each other alien. Place the ships on your home bases as “masks”, one mask per base. Masks are treated as your ships but may not be moved, except by your power. You may only possess one mask at a time of each color.
At any time, if you do not have a mask in your nexus, you may use this power to “masquerade” as another alien. Move a mask from a home base to your nexus. While you have a mask in your nexus, gain the power of the mask’s original owner as a sub-power until the end of upkeep. Rebound the mask during upkeep.
If the original owner attempts to use their power while you are masquerading as them, or an aspect targets that alien by name, you may accuse them of being fake. If the accusation is successful, zap that alien. That alien may haggle with you for 3 influence to renounce the accusation and rebound your mask. Otherwise, both you and that alien are zapped.
As a leader, after arrival, if you have a home base without a mask on it, you may use this power to abduct one ship on the opposing side whose mask you do not already possess.
Legacy: Any alien may discharge a flare to use the tethered alien’s power, unless that flare is also tethered.
Inspired by stories of great and powerful beings, the impressionable Masks have developed the resources to attain such glory for themselves. Playing up their personas as seriously as possible, they often end up convincing themselves of their own disguise, accusing all others as mere pretenders.
Any: Any
Leader: Arrival
Optional
Wild Flare
At the start of any orientation, you may discharge this flare to accuse another alien of being a shoddy copy of you. Both of you are zapped this invasion.
Any: Orientation
Super Flare
After accusing an alien of being fake, if the haggle fails, you may discharge this flare to prevent yourself from being zapped.
Any: Any
Modifications
- Mask is my own original alien. It cannot be found in base Cosmic.
- Mask’s legacy allows a flare to become a power, but only if that power is not in the base game. It requires a good knowledge of what other powers do, so it is fitting for a red alert power. Aliens who can obtain a large number of flares can benefit tremendously from this legacy, getting a choice of multiple secondary powers each invasion. Aliens like Hacker and Barbarian who can abduct specific pods can take advantage of it fairly well. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Mask ships don’t have much combat potential. Their main draw is in their ability to get Mask additional powers.
- Mask can only hold as many mask ships as home bases it has. This makes it especially important for Mask to win as defender.
- Mask can activate its power at any time, meaning it can wait until after contact to pull out a combat power like Anti-Matter or Virus. The other alien can only stop them when they activate the power, so Mask is better off fighting aliens with powers belonging to other aliens.
- Ideally, Mask wants to keep its mask supply active, meaning it needs to keep opposing aliens whose masks it doesn’t already own.
Development Notes
- Mask was my own attempt to create a meta power that messes with alien powers while still having its own niche, separate from Plant, Reincarnator, Chrysalis, etc. It is most similar to Plant, but the way it operates is much different. Instead of having to establish bases in other systems, it starts out with the powers and consumes them. Moreover, it doesn’t assimilate the powers in the same way as Plant but simply impersonates them. It is a means of having the same power in the game twice without running into strange rulings issues like Calculator vs. Calculator.
- Mask’s power can be used as an emergency zap by consuming the mask and quashing the barter. However, this will cost Mask 3 ships and the mask, so it is not fully reliable.
- Unlike Plant, Mask can still use a power if the alien gets deactivated, as long as it has a mask ship to use. This means Mask is encouraged to zap and deactivate aliens if it wants to use their powers. If it wants the emergency negotiations, it is better off keeping them active.
- I considered giving Mask a special offer, but I wanted to avoid adding more text to the bio.