Schizoid
Alert
Meta
Type
Power to Alter Reality
Changes the Rules of Reality
Setup: Manifest three random legacies from the outer realm. Choose one to be your “reality” and shroud the remaining two in your nexus. Your reality is considered an active legacy while this power is active.
Whenever a hazard manifests, manifest three random legacies from the outer realm and shroud them in your nexus. Then scrap the legacies in your nexus until you have at most three. After any destiny is drawn, you may use this power to swap your current reality with a legacy from your nexus. If this power is disrupted, scrap your current reality.
Legacy: At the end of every upkeep, add a new legacy to the match, replacing the previous one added by this effect if applicable.
The Schizoids have always been a rather unhinged race of aliens, but then again perhaps not. Perhaps they are the only aliens that truly see the Cosmos for what it is and need to become our benevolent overlords for the good of us all.
Any: Destiny
Optional
Wild Flare
After any destiny, you may discharge this flare to manifest a legacy from the outer realm. You may either scrap it or make it an active legacy. If you make it active, this flare gains burnout.
Any: Destiny
Super Flare
After any destiny, you may discharge this flare to add a legacy from your nexus as an additional reality. This reality functions the same as the original. If this flare is lost, return the legacy from this reality to your nexus.
Any: Destiny
Modifications
- Schizoid’s FFG power is an alt-win alien and one of the first to attempt a mechanic equivalent to the essence card cache. Schizoid has a deck of 6 cards listing specific alternate win conditions. Schizoid chooses one of these cards and makes it the official method of winning. When other players win an encounter in Schizoid’s system, they can see one of the cards that aren’t chosen, allowing them to narrow down what needs to be done to actually win. The win conditions are:
- Relocator: Three foreign bases in the same system.
- Invader: Three foreign bases with at least four ships on each.
- Bluffer: Four foreign bases and then fail a deal.
- Diplomat: Three foreign bases and then make a deal.
- Xenophobe: Three foreign bases and then establish a new home base.
- Colonizer: Three foreign bases and then obtain a resupply.
- With the FFG version, players are also able to play a Cosmic Zap on Schizoid at any time after winning the normal way to declare victory.
- The original form of Schizoid allowed players to make up their own win condition, with players having to ask Schizoid yes or no questions about what the condition is when attacking its system. The condition has to be possible for everyone, and Schizoid has to honestly declare a winner when someone meets the condition.
- The FFG wild flare is a burnout flare that lets the user swap home systems and colors with any player at the end of any encounter, a similar effect to Pretender. It can be a major upset against the current frontrunner, though it thankfully cannot be used to immediately win a match.
- The FFG super flare allows Super Schizoid to change-up the chosen Schizoid win condition, so long as it does not give any player an immediate win. It makes it much more difficult for other players to guess what needs to be done to secure victory.
- Schizoid’s legacy adds a new random legacy to the match after every encounter, resulting in any number of effects that could wildly affect the outcome of the match. Each new legacy could be significant or insignificant, but it will always be fleeting, preventing any one legacy from causing too much trouble. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- With Schizoid in play, there will always be at least one legacy in effect. As Schizoid, choose the legacy that most benefits you based on the current situation of your ships and pods.
- Unlike how legacies normally function, Schizoid can take advantage of timing to ensure it benefits from the legacies while punishing others. For instance, it can always have Masochist’s legacy active and disable it right before its own campaign begins. It can turn on Mirror’s legacy for a turn so it can make better use of its 09 pod, or it can turn on Leviathan’s legacy while acting as an invader.
- In contrast to an alien like Reincarnator, legacies are not lost by swapping them out. Schizoid is free to keep changing up its reality to its own tastes. The longer the match goes on, the more Schizoid can tailor its collection of realities to the current match, making it more effective as time goes on.
- Unlike most alien powers, legacies cannot be zapped once they are in effect. While Schizoid can be zapped while swapping its power, the current legacy is untouchable if Schizoid leaves it alone. If Schizoid is wielding a particularly nasty legacy, zapping it at the right time can permanently remove it from Schizoid’s resource pool.
Development Notes
- A schizoid is a specific personality disorder characterized by an inability to connect with others. The official psychological term is distinct from schizophrenia, but it is often informally used to refer to the condition. The name is meant to encapsulate a being with a warped perception of reality, with the alien power bringing that perception into reality.
- Since Schizoid is an alt-win alien, it necessitates a change in my version, especially since it is the sort that does not help the alien win via the normal method and requires remembering the past information of which win conditions have been revealed as inactive. It also requires specific knowledge of what the six win conditions are, which is one reason it is a red alert alien. It is also rather lame that Schizoid can simply be zapped to win the normal way, taking a way a good chunk of its impact on the match. Though it helps avoid annoying stalemates related to the two negotiation-focused win conditions, it is a recipe for anticlimactic matches and gives Cosmic Zaps too much importance for my taste.
- I really like the theme of an alien that warps the perception of reality, either exposing a truth that no one else could see or gaslighting others into a shared insanity. Schizoid’s ability to modify reality every encounter also captures a sense of instability that wouldn’t quite fit if it were invader-only or main-player only.
- The biggest struggle with working out this power was making sure that it granted the user a meaningful advantage. While legacies are certainly impactful to the game, they are designed to be symmetrically applied to everyone, which doesn’t facilitate an asymmetrical power boost. The asymmetry then comes from Schizoid’s ability to manipulate the legacies and give them the reality they want to see. By limiting their options to four at a time and restricting the gaining of new realities to hazard warnings, it allows for some strategy while still capturing the idea that Schizoid’s ideas are not fully its own.
- Schizoid’s power and legacy is another reason why legacies need to be designed to be modular, capable of being added and removed for a single encounter without breaking anything. Many legacies offer symmetrical variations of base powers, such as Mirror or Loser
- Originally, my idea for Schizoid made use of hazards instead of legacies. This is also why the current version of the design is based on hazard warning timing, as it still matches the theme of instability well. While the hazard version was an effective idea, Cosmic Odyssey, a later FFG expansion, released an alien known as Gremlin with an effect that was too similar, requiring the need to change Schizoid.
- Original Schizoid is one of the most complex powers in all of Cosmic, particularly the original Eon version. By allowing so much freedom for players to make custom win conditions, they can game the system and come up with ideas that are technically possible but completely unfair, such as having to sing a specific song after getting one base or be the only player without a single base after someone gets three. The power can also be used to add some interesting changeups to the metagame, such as requiring three of a player’s bases to be in the same system or having as many foreign bases as cards in-hand. It just requires the right players to use the effect without abusing it.