Imp

Alert

Resource

Type

Power of Mischief

Hides Extra Pods in Systems

Setup: Place a “hovel” in each alien system. Gain one free resupply for each other alien in the match.

Whenever you have more than four pods in your cache, use this power to shroud pods into your hovels until you have four pods in your cache. If you are zapped, scrap all but four pods in your cache instead.

While you are in an alien’s system, you may discharge pods from that system’s hovel.

Legacy: If an alien has more than four pods in their cache, they must scrap pods until they have four.

The Imps love flittering around and causing trouble, hiding their weapons and acting like they are much less prepared than they actually are. Their small stature and quick wit allows them to find the best hiding spots where no other alien would think to look, which is advantageous since their tiny hands can’t hold that many weapons at once.

Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

At any time, if you have more than four other pods in your cache, you may discharge this flare to scrap pods from your cache until you have four pods (including this flare).

Any: Any

Super Flare

When using your power, you may discharge this flare to draft a pod before shrouding.

Any: Any

Modifications

Originally “Pygmy” with the power of “Half”, this power was fully redesigned from its original ability of having 8 tiny planets. Establishing bases on Pygmy’s planets are only worth half of a base, and only four ships can exist on Pygmy’s planets at a time, incorporating timing rules to determine which ships land. The original power is also persistent. It needed a redesign for the same reason as Symbiote, since its original power is never “used” and cannot be zapped.
Pygmy was changed from green alert to red alert
Original Wild Pygmy forces an alien to only receive half as many rewards as usual, tying into the theme of “half”.
Original Super Pygmy provides a combat power as the defender that halves the opponent’s attack pod, as if it shrinks those who enter Pygmy’s system to its own size.
Imp’s legacy makes it so all aliens must scrap pods until they have 4, limiting everyone’s options and increasing the speed of obtaining resupplies without getting Imp’s perk of storing cards in hovels.

Tips

Imp’s limited caches give it fewer options depending on which system it is. It works best for Imp to place its best pods in the systems it wishes to challenge most, or place them in its own system to have defensive options.
Imp scrapping pods quickly allows it to more quickly gain resupplies and stockpile more pods into its hovels. Gaining backer boons can provide additional support directly to the hovels, though they add more time until the next resupply.
Encounter pods in enemy systems are much more situational than support pods, but only leaving support pods and lucre in your cache can guarantee you a resupply.
Support pods are more valuable to shroud in foreign hovels since they can be utilized as a sponsor instead of only as the invader, making them more likely to see use.
Imp can stash its lucre in its own hovel, allowing it to discharge during upkeep after acting as a defender. Or it can stash it in a particular system and do its best to participate in an encounter taking place there.

Development Notes

I struggled most with this one’s theming in terms of its power name. The original concept was based around a small creature having “tiny hands”, but I wanted to have the power name tie into the hovel mechanic. A tiny creature running around hiding things everywhere brings to mind the image of a trickster sort of creature, which made me think it was more fitting for an imp than a pygmy. Imps are also known for being small, so I thought the theme was still on-point.
Imp is most comparable to Miser and Cryo in terms of its effect and value. All three have the ability to gain more pods and protect the pods they have. Miser is frontloaded with extra pods and can effectively guarantee that nothing takes them without losing access to them. Cryo can protect them at the cost of losing access to them for a set amount of time, drafting new pods to replace them. Imp can protect them at the cost of only being able to use them again situationally.
Due to Imp’s design, if its starting cache has 4 or fewer encounter pods, it can shroud those encounter pods into its hovels and immediately request a free resupply. Imp could potentially start the game, use its power, and request an immediate free resupply. It shouldn’t pose too much of an issue due to my Cosmic’s resupply limitation, but I would want to make sure Imp isn’t punished too hard for this aspect of its design. At the very least, it will ensure no infinite loop can occur.
I also don’t want to discount the loss of support pods that occurs through resupply spam. If you draft a Cosmic Zap and a Reinforcement pod and shroud the encounter pods into your hovels, you have to scrap the zap and reinforcement to get the resupply. Also, if you draft something like the 40 pod and shroud it, you can only use it in the system where you shrouded it. It’s also more valuable to place support pods into the hovels than encounter pods, so the resupply spam may not actually be the optimal strategy.
I added the hovel scrapping clause to Imp’s effect to provide some means of getting the aur back after it has been stashed away. It encourages spreading out the pods to different hovels and adds a risk/reward factor of using the resources there.