"Each spaceship has a voice; a melody of machinery and subsystems its crew learns intimately during long travels. The issue is, ever since the last mission our ship sounds WRONG. There’s something foul in the way it speaks to us. It murmurs that are barely audible . Odd whispers no machine could make. The dark corridors and huge halls almost seem to SING.

Some of us have tried to find sources of this interferences, but they always seemed two steps ahead. Stalked by their never-ending presence, we soon began cracking. Our engineer has cut some words into his flesh. When we asked why, he said: ‘Incandescent secrets need to be written in blood’. Then, our navigator took a spacewalk without her space suit. When we pulled her in, her entire face was frozen and cracked and she grinned in a way I will never forget.

Now, it has gotten even worse. Noises transformed into voices, sharing tales of slaughter and terror. They do not run away from us anymore. They encircle and herd us through the ship to some dark purpose. I must UNDERSTAND them before it’s too late. I put my hand on my pistol grip, looking at the backs of my last two crewmembers. I see dark mysteries swirling in their skulls. It would only take a couple bullet holes to release them..."

Rules

Overlook

Voidseeders are a species that can interact with the minds of crew members. They will have a few nests instead of one, but only one strong fighting presence at any given moment. Once killed, a new one will be awakened from the most developed nest.

This race focuses on whispering and controlling minds - people who will be near them will start to hear voices commanding them to do different destructive things.

Nests

On the board, there is normally 1 Nest as a room token, but there are also 2-3 smaller nests. Those are places where new Voidseeders will be born. At the moment of discovering the main Nest, you should put a Stalker miniature in it (this is the model that is on the ship from the very beginning. He is very dangerous, especially when faced by inidividuals with a high Insanity level).

Other Nests will start appearing on the board together with discovering certain Exploration tokens. Those nests will be especially hazardous. They will not move, but if a crew member will happen to end the turn at the tile with a nest, they will get a serious wound.

Voidlurkers

They spawn in nests, and their objective will be to spread insanity and try to move players to Nests.

Whispersers

They work very similarly to Voidlurkers, but with the difference that they will have the main goal of defending the main nest.

Stalker

He is the main guardian. He utilizes the fear/insanity of the crew members and will focus on them.

Despoiler

The equivalent of the Queen. Actually, it is difficult to say if she is real or if it is a mass hallucination. Either way, she will only emerge when all Insanity tokens are on players (number of tokens will be specific for different numbers of players). She is very strong.

Contamination card

Here it changes a little bit - players will normally get a contamination card every time they will get an insanity token. They will be easier to discard (No need to check if it was infected or not). The effect of the card will only take place at the very end of the game, and it will be the same as in the normal version - if it will turn out it was indeed "infected," it will mean that your character, even if escaped, went mad and lost the game either way.

Whispers mechanic

This mechanism changes the noise mechanic. Whenever you move (or an event card will tell you to), you need to roll for whispers. If you would get a corridor with an whisper token already in it (you hear something more) - you need to take a Card from the Insanity deck. Those cards may or may not apply to you based on the numbers of insanity tokens your character has. Effects can be very different - from one-time action to permanent disabilities.

Combat

In combat, Voidlurkers only try to add insanity tokens to you and then run away to the closes nest. Whisperers will be harder to kill, as well as deal some portion of actual physical danger, but their main weapon will still be giving you insanity tokens.

Things will change with Stalker and Despoiler - those two will be huge opponents who will give you real wounds, so you will not want to be around them.

Event phase

In the event phase, one additional step that will be added is checking your insanity tokens and numbers of Voidlurkers and Whisperers in all rooms adjacent to yours. If the number of them is higher than the number of insanity tokens, you add one insanity token and take one contamination card.

But whenever you are in a room with other people, this effect will be less harmful. (they can help you calm down)

Overall feel

The overall feel the game designers will be going for will be way different from what you will have in the base Core Box. They have a lot of cool ideas how to get Insanity cards in a way, that it will be an additional layer of you not trusting your friends - not only because of their objective but perhaps because of the Insanity cards.