Ini a previous thread sulphurea was kind enough to post a link to a Game Trade Magazine interview with Kevin Wilson about Innsmouth. Here is the text of that interview:
J.R. Godwin (JR): Kevin, you have designed a total of five expansions for Arkham Horror. What makes Innsmouth different?
Kevin Wilson (KW): Innsmouth is the third city expansion for Arkham, and of the three, the creepy little fishing village is by far the most dangerous place to be. It has unstable locations like Dunwich, a board timer like Kingsport in the form of the Deep Ones Rising track, and adds a generous helping of new monsters, Ancient Ones, and investigators. Finally, Innsmouth introduces personal stories, which is this set’s new mechanic, much like madness/injuries and epic battles were added in the previous city expansions.
JR: You mentioned personal stories. What are these exactly?
KW: Each investigator now has a personal goal that they’d like to accomplish over the course of the game that ties into their “Story So Far” background. For example, Jenny Barnes (the dilettante) originally came to Arkham looking for her missing sister way back in the early days of Arkham Horror. Well, if players use the optional personal stories variant, Jenny can actually find her sister now. Of course, a lot of these goals take time away from saving the world, so players have to weigh the time investment against what they’ll gain or lose from succeeding or failing at their personal story. In some ways, personal stories are like a very trimmed down version of plots from Android, which makes sense, since that’s where the inspiration came from. A personal story is included for every investigator ever made for Arkham Horror, even those added in Dunwich and Kingsport.
JR: So there are going to be a total of 16 new investigators. Any favorites?
KW: Hmm, that’s a tough one. Designing new investigators is one of my favorite parts of working on these expansions, but if I had to pick three, I’d say Silas Marsh the Sailor, because of his strong ties to Innsmouth, Patrice Hathaway the Violinist, because I love “team-based” special abilities, and Agnes Baker the Waitress, because in what other game can a waitress be an awesome hero that people hope to get to play?
JR: Something on everyone’s mind, the eight new Ancient Ones. Any hints as to who might be making an appearance?
KW: Well, I’ll go you one better and confirm two Ancient Ones: Bokrug, who brings along the creepy Beings of Ib, and Ghatanothoa, who makes a return appearance from the old Chaosium edition of Arkham Horror at last. In addition to the new Ancient Ones, players can rest easy, because yes, Father Dagon and Mother Hydra will be appearing as new heralds. Interestingly, the two of them can be used together for an even more difficult game. It’s possible that using those two heralds with Cthulhu and all the cities is now the hardest possible way to play Arkham Horror.
JR: I see an Innsmouth Look deck listed under the game components. How does this affect gameplay?
KW: Basically, the Innsmouth Look deck represents the chances that the investigators have a Deep One in their family tree somewhere. If so, exposure to the city of Innsmouth can cause that heritage to manifest, turning the investigator into a Deep One. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this just yet, but I will say that no, this isn’t a traitor mechanic being added to Arkham Horror.
JR: Big thank you to Kevin! Look for more information to be coming out in the next few months. The horror descends in May.
As we can see, those who speculated that the Innsmouth personal story cards would be like those from Android were correct. I KNEW that Jenny would be given a way to find her sister, and I figured that was the Personal Story card they would show in the posted preview article about the Personal Story mechanic.
Silas Marsh is undoubedly a descendant of the Marsh who first made the pact with the Deep Ones. His Personal Story should be quite interesting.
The Heralds revealed!
I definitely want to hear more about the Innsmouth Look deck. Maybe Kevin will make it the subject of one os his preview articles, which we're still waiting for (hint, hint).