Essence Cards

Several aliens begin the game with a new component called essence cards. Each of these aliens has an essence symbol on its sheet and its own set of essence cards which enhance its power.

Setup and Gameplay
Before playing as an alien with essence cards, shuffle that alien’s essence cards and place them facedown as a set. Then, draw three cards from that set as your essence card cache. When referred to by game effects, a set of essence cards is not considered to be a deck and a cache of essence cards is not considered to be a hand. Cards in a player’s cache are kept separate from the set and kept secret from all other players until played.

Players will always maintain a cache of three cards; each time players play or are forced to lose an essence card from their cache, they replace that card by taking the top card from their set and placing it in their cache. Any essence cards that are played or lost are kept in a faceup unavailible pile. When there are no essence cards left in a set, that player shuffles his unavailable essence cards to form a new set.

When an alien sheet with the essence symbol is lost or flipped facedown, all essence cards still in the game belonging to that alien are returned to that player’s unavailable pile.

Players can always look at their cache as well as essence cards they have played on another player. Players who have been given essence cards may not look at them if they are facedown.

Aliens with Essence Cards
Alien - 9 traumas

Anarchist - 8 disruptions

Assistant - 6 helps

Nanny - 8 consequences

Nightmare - 10 bad dreams

Oligarch - 5 privileges

Sheriff - 9 tickets